If my gaming experience mirrored yours, I'd be frustrated as well, but for reasons I've yet to fathom, mine is nothing like what you're experiencing. My biggest complaints aren't with game play, other than AI horses that run 25 times per season with remarkable success. I'd like better record keeping and sort-able stats to boost immersion and cut down on my manual spreadsheets.

Just out of curiosity, do you auto or manual train? I train myself and don't run them unless the fit bar is at 90% or better and the green condition bar is at 100%.

Given up. I hear a lot about realism but no soft ground in the UK is nonsense and I estimate 70% of races lack a genuine front runner. A look at the formbook shows you that AI trainers are regularly winning 7f races with MD horses and vie versa, nope sorry I;m not wasting any more time on it

Decided to try a half hour to see if I could get my enthusiasm for the game back and encountered something so silly it confirmed my view. Mile 2yo maiden and y colt won by 2.75 lengths going away from a filly staying on one paced for 2nd. Both on second runs mine a good half length 2nd, AIs a 6 length 3rd. Ratings after race? Mine 84 and AI filly 98, complete and utter nonsense.

I also prefer 6, I would rather have a slightly less realistic experience in terms of having too much success than spend endless seasons struggling to achieve anything at all. It also feels like basic things such as well handicapped horses outrunning their ratings have gone out of the window and been replaced by random outcomes that make no sense in context. Breeding is similarly random and offers little reward. One suggestion should SO8 ever come to fruition (I am skeptical) would be to offer a choice of 'Arcade' or 'Simulation' modes, with Arcade mode being more in the style of SO6 or even 5 in terms of breeding and handicapping, while simulation would be more challenging (or unrewarding) as is the case with SO7.

It would be a shame if SO7 was indeed to be the climax of our beloved franchise, as it is an inherently flawed product that doesn't really do the series justice in terms of gameplay. It's been a long standing dream of mine to see a game that combines the depth, realism and customization we have in terms of editing names, stats, breeding and real courses races in Starters Orders, with the race sequence and gameplay of the Champion Jockey series from Koei. A long time ago, I even attempted to get the game made but the estimated costs were in excess of a million dollars (LOL!). I hope to see further editions of SO in years to come, I'd certainly continue to purchase and support the game, provided the gameplay was enhanced significantly. The only issues I had with previous versions were the degradation of general stability after multiple seasons, which usually led to the save becoming unplayable. I feel as though a few tweaks to things in the existing setup could have helped increase the difficulty without resorting to the system we have in SO7. Ramping the strength of AI horses, so that as years pass by in game and you gain better horses, the overall quality of horses in AI stables increases in general would be one. The addition of 'super stables' would have been a good idea also, a set of trainers or owners that have a significantly higher number of horses of better quality, as in real life.