No point at all. Which is why the best outcome has to come from Mark. The game and the CK need to be the same period. Whether a trainer uses it can then be down to choice, it may make organising mass numbers of horses easier, but offers no advantage. Thats the key for me.

All good - I was just trying to clarify myself.

I agree.

This is a prime example of a good game, bad CK horse. One side of the line is one of my best 1.2m flat horses in the league, the other is a multi G1 winner game mare I brought at auction. The foal has adopted the look of the sire. She is last in pretty much every trial, every distance and every age, were talking 10 lengths plus.

I do think that the ck is the worst part of the game and it does stop me from playing when it comes round to trialling. The inconsistency and how it deosnt match up to the game is very frustrating.

But i dont think getting rid of it is the answer, its very easy to get a very good game horse that can win multiple group ones and if going blind you would just accept the first of these and not bother playing anymore and they would more than likely be useless.

Ideally it would be changed to make it easier to trial, for example being able to run multiple trials at the same time or some way of recording results in there but thats out of our hands.

But mainly just a good game horse being a good ck horse.

Dont see any issues with the schedule from my point of view im a very casual player dont spend loads of time on the game or trialling and there is plenty of ways to pick up wins in handicaps as long as you place your horses correctly.

I also dont agree with punishing the top players, the information is out there to compete at the top if people have the time and determination. I hate the idea of making it too easy for people or punishing succes of people who have spent a lot of time building the teams.

I preferred the game with all the stats viewable and wonder if some people prefer playing non-league mode as think it is a better game than league mode and therefore dont bother with the online game, hence fewer new players?

Josh did u watch that horse run or just click through the races, I think it makes a massive amount of difference to the results. One thing that has improved a massive amount in SO7 is the ratings. U need to be excellent in game to reach 140 on the flat and 180 over fences. Now if a horse reaches those numbers and are totally useless then fair enough but I don't think people are taking any notice of them. Only my very best horses in CK are getting to the top numbers. Doug I think u got some good ideas but I couldn't see Mark being able to change SO7 that much. I think the fairest thing is that every horse whether u rated 120 or 65 should have the same amount of chance to win a race. We need a set amount of 0-85 and under every week, probably around 10 to 13 and that way every horse will have a equal chance to win in its grade and yes some of those races didn't have massive fields but not every race on the flat has big fields. A massive amount through summer doesn't.

I would be breeding that to death. For me, top racing Fillies rarely directly produce anything good in the CK. However if you keep all their dud offspring (mostly mares) at stud, they are the ones that produce. Wuxi Tales is an example with Xinyi Player. Xinyi Player has not produced one league horse directly, however, I keep all her filly offspring that fail miserably in my trials. These duds have pretty much all been producing. Tongling Harlestone is a daughter of Xinyi Player, with no in game form, didn't score a point in my trials, but I bred her with my best Colt sprinter (Beijing Respect) also in the league and they produced Wuxi tales who is 3 from 3 in the league. I definitely think there's something in the skipping a generation thing

To me that might be a tweener of a horse, it doesn't show to me a miler but a 9 furlong horse. If that was my mare it would be going to a 1.2m stallion early then sending her later to 6 furlong stallion.

Now I really know I shouldn't get involved , let alone post...

As per normal the top end of the league do not want any change which is understandable as they are there by right, through luck, time, expertise, call it what you will and we do this every season and go around the garden, implementing changes to try and appeal to all.

Most of this has arisen due to the in game handicapping this year and yes the higher trainers getting a small advantage with being able to place horses in lower grade handicaps with slightly better horses than they prob should be rated (Vinny already assisting) which of course will dampen the spirits of those trainers that are predominately trying to win handicaps due to either there luck, time or expertise not being as good as others, the proposed changing of the bands, really should be happening this season, expecting lower end trainers to suffer a further 8 weeks of struggling to collect a handicap win would be detrimental to the league going forward.

As John mentioned before, how many would play if they only had a strike rate of 0-1% ? the risk for the top end is that eventually there will be only 5 of you (plus 1st timers) and that is fine, but you probably will not have enough volunteers

So sadly we need to keep people interested that have not been here for ages and have lives outside of SO

Too many people threatening to leave which is very unstable in my opinion and many things are said in the heat of the moment, I know, but this is the 1st season I have ever known Gray to consider towel throwing, the rest of you its standard procedure each season when something happens you do not like or feel threatened by

No one really knows what to do here and what is the best way forward, has any one spoken to Mark about why the difference between in game and CK horses ?

Can I see a Kerry Packer in the making

I watch the G1's, she bolted to the gate, or whatever the narrative is in the Caulfield. She went on to win several more G1's in her 4yo season, including the 1.1m races from Japan onwards, she also won at 1.2m when 4. This is the wound back version of the game before they were exported.



As will I, and I'll probabaly keep the Dam too, though all her offspring so far are CK busts.

Let's all enjoy the season fellas, it's available to us on a game that costs around £25-30 or so - it is never ever going to be perfect but the league really is enjoyable.

I'll stop playing the game until I have a bit more confidence in the future of the league - Leon, Martin etc already showing signs of apathy and I put a lot of hours in to build up a stable and return to playing this game. But i'll focus on other stuff and keep an eye on here for how things progress because there's no point playing and trialling etc if we are going to argue all the way through the season and potentially lose key members and have a huge gap until the next season (or no next season at all!)

We can make some tweaks that make next season even better - that is all we can do, the game is the game and i doubt Mark is going to change the CK suddenly. Of course it makes 0 sense that the CK and game performances of a horse be so different but at least we are all of a level playing field in that regard just as we would be if we 'fixed' the CK or removed it completely.

I would just like to state that this is my last season. I have already informed Gray. Whoever is willing to take over I will do a handover. It has been great but that's it for me

That would be a huge loss and I think a huge mistake. People discussing the best outcome for the league is not an issue surely?. Yes forum posting is dry inpersonal and may lead to the assumption of insults, but I doubt anyone is seeking to drive anyone else out of the game, debate is healthy is it not?

Why now Leon!!! We all want a perfect game and we all know it will Never be perfect but it gives us all something to talk/moan about

Are people actually looking at the results of the races? Didn't Ryan Costello just take a nice handicap prize in the Boodles at Goodwood? And wasn't there 6 different winning trainers in the flat on day 1? And 8 different trainers winning on the NH?

Ryan Costello even had a horse that beat Josh's in a feature handicap at Ascot?

The big trainers are winning the group races, yes, of course that is going to happen - yet Jim who classes himself as being just below top tier but with some great horses has shown he has a 3yo capable of winning classics when Royal Hangman won the 2000 guineas last week. But from wjhat I can see big trainers are struggling to take handicaps and this will be even more difficult when we tweak the schedule and the racekit - but it is already kind of working pretty well, the lower rated horses should be targeting the right races rather and the strike rates will not be 0-1%.

I can understand why Leon has had enough, from what I can see he has helped to improve TOM significantly and has helped to improve the league whilst also taking on some of the costs himself. And yet all he will hear on here so far this season is accusations that the league is designed for the 'elite' and that no care is given to smaller trainers. The schedule has tonnes of opportunities for all trainers, James Shea won a 2 runner handicap at Pontefract - why aren't more horses in there? I'll tell you why, because they are entered in the Yorkshire Cup and Tenno Sho where they don't have a hope in hell of winning. That is not Leon's fault, or josh's, or Paul, Craig, or mine - we have managed to find good staying flat horses and enter them with a real chance of winning. But the enjoyment of it is totally taken away by accusations that we are not helping the smaller trainers even though every single one of us shares our approach to playing the game on here. Hell if you want i'll set up a Zoom for anyone who wants a full walkthrough of my stable and how i've bred a competitive NH team in under 40 seasons.

I don't care about winning, I never entered this league thinking i'd even be in the top 5 or 10, I just wanted to enjoy being back playing again.

I'll call it a day on comms and just enter the horses I have rather than upload any new ones (or just swap in 5 sitting in my current export folder and hope to get lucky) and get through to the end of the season. It has been a lot of game time and 4-5 hours each of the past 4 weeks now doing comms and look where we are.