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 The Potential Box bars 
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Selling plater

Joined: Fri May 07, 2021 2:36 pm
Posts: 15
Post The Potential Box bars
Hi
Can someone explain the Ability bar in more detail the bar is light green and dark green does the dark reach the end of the light green through running and training?
And what to look for in the other stat bars. Would help to either keep or sell certain horses.

Thank You.


Fri Jun 11, 2021 10:04 pm
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Handicapper

Joined: Sun Mar 29, 2020 1:42 pm
Posts: 111
Location: Lincolnshire, England
Post Re: The Potential Box bars
I am thirty seasons into a single UK combined game, saving after every race and without parallel games running. Without wanting to rain on your parade, my advice would be to only spend small amounts of time considering stats. Largely speaking they are nonsense. I have had horses with 50% battling (which is unusually high) that do not battle any more than any other horses. I have had ones with high consistency that are not consistent. And many yearlings with maximum stats that drop at 2yo and never rise again. When I first used these forums eighteen months ago there were plenty of people talking about developing horses - getting those stats up. I suspect with hindsight those people were basing their views on SO6 (don't know as I didn't play it). Anyway those same people largely do not post any longer as they have realised that stats info is simply there to add depth to the game - not because they particularly work.

Sometimes horses do realise the potential bar (i.e goes dark green). Sometimes horses with a 85% dark green bar initially will rise to 95% at 4yo. Why? I have no idea. As that is happening, horses with 95% initially fail to win more than £20k in a career. I have tried all variations of training in my thirty seasons. I have used the field more, then not at all, then back to using it again. I have even tried putting NH prospects into the breeding barn until 4yo and instead of breeding with them took them out and raced them. Having missed out on two years of development they should be flops on the track, but no, they are the same as all the others I have tried to develop through training strategies and gallops. I recently bought at auction (believe it or not ) a stallion that had won the Cheltenham Gold Cup just six months earlier. He cost just £88k. His stats were very average once revealed. In the same season I won the Grand National with a horse of my own who wouldn't have got into my top 50 chasers of all time.

So, what am I saying ? Before you put SO7 to one side, it can still be a fun game. Just don't get hung up on stats. Not for racing. Not for breeding. Use them as guidelines only. Keep horses from each breeding round with the best realised (dark green) potential bar, and maximum speed (if not maximum at least 85% initially). Get them out on the racecourse and develop them by doing the obvious regarding distance and race type as they age. Some will develop and some just won't. Just be ruthless with horses that show no improvement by middle age. Well, maybe. My GN winner should have been gone by 7 yo by his stats and race performances but I kept him because by season twenty nine I had realised that stats are largely a nonsense - for every 100 horses you breed one will be a real good 'un, half a dozen will be very good, and a dozen will be good. The other eighty or so will range from disappointing to awful - until you sell them to the AI at which point some will become superstars.

Judge your horses by track performance and use those graphs in the middle of the page that need to be heading northwards. Experiment in the breeding barn but understand that only very occasionally will you discover a sire (your own or AI) that truly improves your bloodlines. Once discovered use him lots.

I still play SO7 lots, and enjoy it. Just wish I hadn't wasted so much time believing that the stats and training features actually worked.

Hope this helps.


Sat Jun 12, 2021 10:12 am
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Selling plater

Joined: Fri May 07, 2021 2:36 pm
Posts: 15
Post Re: The Potential Box bars
Thx for the reply. A good insight since you have 30 seasons under your belt, will use your thought on high potential and speed as i just use the flat and focus mainly on sprinters :).

Regards
Robbie


Sun Jun 13, 2021 9:51 am
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Handicapper

Joined: Sun Mar 29, 2020 1:42 pm
Posts: 111
Location: Lincolnshire, England
Post Re: The Potential Box bars
In that case just worry about speed. I have seen it written on here that the stats for yearlings read as they will be for the horse at 3yo. That is not entirely accurate, but close enough. You will have horses that perform well at 2yo but are pretty much useless at 3yo onwards. Nothing you can do about that - it's the same in real life. If you are mainly interested in short distance flat racers just breed for speed and get them out on the track.


Sun Jun 13, 2021 11:24 am
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Handicapper

Joined: Mon Jun 16, 2008 1:03 am
Posts: 110
Post Re: The Potential Box bars
The best way to decipher this game is trial and error, trial and error, trial and error. There's unpredictability and variation built into the game that I fund alluring, but with enough trial and error the game will to some extent reveal itself. Not to the point that x+y=z, which would make the game a formulaic dead end, but where x+y=z occurs at a percentage that offers a potential road map. If that makes sense.


Sun Jun 13, 2021 9:06 pm
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Handicapper

Joined: Sun Mar 29, 2020 1:42 pm
Posts: 111
Location: Lincolnshire, England
Post Re: The Potential Box bars
What you are saying makes sense to me mark_laker.

My advice to newer players will always be :

- get your horses racing - judge a horse by it's improvement/deterioration - follow what jockeys say - experiment with distances if a horse does not develop - remove horse from game once it is going downhill - always breed with your best available resources but raise the bar each year in terms of what you keep, even if the improvement is very marginal - view the stats of your own horses and the information on the AI horses but take what you see with a large dose of salt - don't expect to ever produce the perfect horse (you don't need to in order to win big races) - consider your gameplay to be just like a real life trainer, trooping up and down the country day after day with little or no reward and just the occasional magic moment that will make it all worthwhile - and experiment with things as making mistakes is the only way to learn.

As you say, SO7 is a game of percentages and (thankfully) not scientific. Parts of the game are nonsense, But after enough hours these parts become obvious. What SO7 does achieve is a natural refreshment every few seasons as horses come and go. As each new season approaches I personally get a buzz from the expectation of the new horses on the flat, and the prospect of a few of my NH horses maturing and getting big race wins.


Mon Jun 14, 2021 12:23 am
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Selling plater

Joined: Fri May 07, 2021 2:36 pm
Posts: 15
Post Re: The Potential Box bars
Long Haul Harry wrote:
In that case just worry about speed. I have seen it written on here that the stats for yearlings read as they will be for the horse at 3yo. That is not entirely accurate, but close enough. You will have horses that perform well at 2yo but are pretty much useless at 3yo onwards. Nothing you can do about that - it's the same in real life. If you are mainly interested in short distance flat racers just breed for speed and get them out on the track.


Thats what i will do breed for speed and hopefully find some nice Group Sprinters like Dayjur and Lochsong :)


Mon Jun 14, 2021 8:35 am
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