There seems to be a horrendous bias towards older horses now it seems worse than ever most of the G1 this
week that were open to weight for age saw the 3 year old's really struggle its something I commented on before
I think there is a serious bias to older national hunt horses which has also got worse. One things for sure its not a
level playing field and never has been in SO7.

Breeding and trialing takes longer than ever playing the same game for alot of years creates huge file sizes
which slows down the game drastically and breeding for the league becomes a total chore the fun is taken
out of it. once your deep into a game skipping days takes alot longer then at the start of a game. I have files
that are well over half a gig. Its got to the stage where I feel its pointless continuing. Because of this I Think my passion for the
league has slowly waned away.

The good thing is there will be a reset coming up when SO8 comes out hopefully alot of the issues will be sorted out then
(Hopefully) I will probably hang fire until the first league of SO8 hopefully will re ignite me.

What do u mean older national hunt horses, I'm confused.

Older horses on the flat means the 4yos are better doesn't it? This is pretty much true to real life as most horses peak at 4.My 4yo's are all better than my 3yo's, however they are competitive at times against them, and occasionally I get 3yos that will be better than my 4yos. This seems to be true to what happens in real life? I don't think it takes too much more time to train horses who peak at 4 rather than 3 does it? It's what I do. I've found you can train them to peak at 3 too as I have some lines like that, I just don't overly concentrate on them

I can't comment too much as I'm only just getting a team together, but all my NH horses all peak at 7, there's a couple who still compete at 8, but again this seems true to real life doesn't it? Flat horses no longer just keep improving until they're 7/8, which was always the issue.

I've had a look at the jump stables and I'd say most people use the combine game, I think josh like me uses the jumps only game. There is no advantage using the jumps game , actually in the combine game u horses mature a year early. Back in 5 or 6 the 3yos had the advantage over older horses because u could get full potential at 3 and so they carried less weight. Can u get full potential 3yos now, if so they would have a slight advantage . I never had a full 3yo in this game but I'm not so sure about other people. That's why I'm confused by what Paul said.

My point is it seems older horses from combined games have an advantage national hunt horses from a combined game even
I have never beat my best 3YO with A flat only 4YO yet these horses from a combined game can
it should be the same for all versions of the game its clear that its not

Look at the 3YO's perfomrances this week 3YO's have little chance in open races

also from a post above 3YO's in "Real Life" are competitive against their elders a decent 3YO will beat his elders A star 3YO's will dominate a division in real life so not sure why the term real life is being bought into the conversation the older gen
dominate WFA races which is not the same in real life.

It just my observations

Paul
i know your not the force you used to be but will be a legend flat trainer
theres so many different G1 trainers these days
i only was interested on the flat game only and stuck with it
having a great season my 3yo im happy with and 4yo but not that happy with a few 2yo
for me now im running against the best trainers in Group races
a lot of my horses get beat in Group races but run well
this is what i always wanted is to have horses running well in Group races
and i have them
i am in beautiful Thailand but can not wait to come home and get more horses ready for next season
Del

But that 'Star' 3yo will always improve from 3 to 4. It beats the older horses when it's 3 because it's a star, not because it's at its peak at 3. I have 3yos that could be very competitive in the League as 3yos, however, at 4 they are just much better so they are always uploaded at 4 initially. People probably avoid uploading the best 3yos as the 4yo version is better, which is right. In the league it shows up more because if you upload the 3yo, with the notion that in the next season you will upload it again at 4, there's a very good chance that everyone will have gone passed you, an you yourself will have better horses by then

I'll have a look at my flat team from last season when I get home to see if there I's a bias towards 3 or 4, I'd say my 3 and 4 year old had equal ability. I'll go on the league page to see if it happened the last two seasons.

So what you are virtually saying is its pointless having 3 Year Olds in the league which actually is my point
so if you target classics thats your lot surely that can't be right

By that after the classic you might as well pack it in

It never used to be that way and I have been part of the league for as long as anyone on here

This certainly is not a case of sour grapes I have gone past my set target for the year and am delighted

I mentioned this to Leon a few seasons ago that the 3YO's could not compete with the older gen at the time
when my horses were decent

Anyway as I say I will just wait until SO8 I HATE the combined game its such hard work

I'd say there's plenty of races for 3yo only in the league, with maybe the exception of 10f. Which is why I didn't upload any 10f 3yos this season. Every other distance I have a 3yo. If I concentrated more on breeding 3yos they would definitely compete with the 4yo's in the league, I just got into the habit of doing it so they peak at 4 an it's too late to change now. Combined games in my opinion are harder to breed horses to peak at 3 or 4 because there's so many horses in there that want to peak at 7/8. Half will be flat developing early, while the other half, the NH side, developing later at 7/8.

I don't think I'd ever play a combined game for flat horses again having given it a try. All my horses in the league are from flat only games. The NH horses I'm about to upload are all from a combined game. There is definitely slightly too much put on when a horse peaks in the game, but it seems to be a minor issue. Pretty sure Jim had a lot of 3yos last season beating the older horses.

I've had a look and my team goes against what Paul says.

Steinbeck and Get Stuck in mopped up between them all the top 6f sprints as 3yo's 2 seasons ago.

Nifty won the Commonwealth and just ran into 2 of my monster sprinters. Angie Baby who won the irish 1000 won grade 1's against older horses. White Poppy and Birchwood also won grade 1's last year.

I'd say i had 9 quality 3yo's the last 2 years and 7 won grade 1's in open company and the other 2 ran second in grade 1's.

It can be done but they have to be top class horses to beat the older horses. I'd say the older horses have probably 1 or 2 pounds advantage over the younger horses.

3yo's are definitely at a disadvantage when racing against 4yo+. You can look at my horses, House Haydn, Ford Vs Ferrari, White Abario, Qushchi Superstar, Hope Swell. They were winning big races against other 3yo and then struggling against the older horses. When they turned 4yo, they beat the older horses.
Potential and bars were exactly the same at 3yo and 4yo

I don't have any issues with this as the goal for my 3yo's are to win the 3yo races and they can come back at 4yo the next year.

i am 59 years young now
i always remember my dad telling me
NEVER BET ON 3YO AGAINST OLDER HORSES
not sure how young i was then maybe 10 - 14
that was over 40 years ago
thats real racing
call me stupid but why are we talking about this now unless i am missing the point ?

It’s interesting how people do things so differently. Personally my best flat horses are always picked based on 3yo form, I pick my 3yo’s first when doing my team, and my 3yo crop are usually pretty competitive. Often as not they come back at 4yo just because I want two seasons out of them rather than on merit, but I also know at four I don’t compete with the top tier flat trainers anyway so who cares, I’d rather win a classic and get two seasons of the same horses. Then churn and waste time trying to compete with older combined types. I return NH horses on the same basis also, neither of my 9yo world hurdle candidates are in the team on pure merit alone my novice entries are far better.

But I will echo what I have said before, too much is made of one game type having an advantage over another, they all offer advantages and disadvantages. What people should be moaning about is why in the name of god did mark create hidden stats and make game form different to exported league form, though personally I am tend to think now it was less by intent and more by random bad coding. If your starting pool of horses does not have these hidden factors or you miss the ones that do, your screwed and will never catch a player who has these things in abundance. So it’s just blind luck, as I have always said .

The only thing league mode did, was prevent everyone from being on an even field. With the tff any trainer like I did, could join the league and catch up, it just took effort. With league mode we decided to punish people making the effort to help those who either could not or did not want to do the same. The effort for reward aspect now, is keep playing new games to find those hidden variables, my new US game at 40 seasons is light years ahead of my 90 season old Aussie flat game, and at 25 seasons my U.K. one has pretty much reached the same level now too, I am not doing anything different between, they just have better available horses, or I missed them long ago in the Aussie game.

Some nice horses missed - Ace Impact, Big Rock, Tahiyra and probably a bunch more.