It seems all my horses go into a race with the highest rating, some haven't even performed for the ratings they are being given.

I have one horse that has a high rating of 125 and it hasn't even won a group 3 race, just a few allowance races , when i step the horse up it fails every time in group company.

With the Australian version of the game there are a lot of handicap group races ie: Melbourne cup, and my horses are getting handicapped out of the races because their ratings are too high.

Anyone face this problem ?

Jason

i often see horses rated over 100 and they have only won 1 seller and have never raced out side of 0-100 handicap race level so why do they get rated so high

Yeah, there does also seem to be an issue with horses running in sellers getting rated too high. I've noticed that too.

I have a classic example in my current flat only game; (game bred horse now at the end of season 3). He's a 130 rated miler and has won every race entered up to & including g2. He's run in four G1s and in every case has run well down the field and at least 14lb below his best, being consistently made to look very average by horses with appreciably lower ratings. After the G1s his rating has gone down to 128/129 and then it returns to 130 after he wins a G2/3.

I've played several flat only games now, all just for a few seasons and all using only game bred horses; one of the first things that I noticed is that the horses are very much restricted to a certain level; you can have an excellent conditions/listed horse but it won't perform to its rating if stepped up to group races.

Unfortunately, I don't think this is a bug; I think this is deliberately built into the game because of some, (to my mind misguided) idea that it makes the game more challenging and enjoyable. It does not and it certainly makes a nonsense of the ratings which have always been one of the principal building bricks for planning your game strategy.

Actually I'm finding his version a bit like playing Monopoly with lots and lots of 'Chance' cards; all of them negative. But wait! what's this?:

"It is your birthday, collect £10 from each player"!!!

Please form an orderly queue.

Similar here, I can have horses that mop up listed/conditions races, can place or win weak group races but are completely tailed off in Group 1's and am also a bit miffed at the fact that I've seen a host of 2yo's rated 130.
Think there needs to be a rough guideline of ratings per class. In SO2 if you had a 120 horse for example who ran in a listed race, it would have to bolt up not to lose a fair few points on the rating scale. In SO4, it would go up no matter how it won.

Would like to see something like -
G1 =125
G2 =115
G3 =110
Lst =105
Cd =101
so on with couple of points higher or lower depending on how well the horse won/opposition level in race.

There has been no code added to 'restrict' horses to certain grades. The only reason i can think of this happening is that trainer AI has been modified to make trainers target the very top races better. It could be that the result is the best horses end up in the G1 races and due to overall pool sizes and ability spreads this creates a bit of a vacuum in the grades below resulting in a bigger step to the very top races. Anyway, if something comes to light it will probably be tweaked in future updates.

Actually I hadn't noticed this too much as I'm still finding my feet and learning about the game. Although one of my horses has just won a jump race in which one horse rated 94 before the off fell at the fifth flight. This was the fifth flight in a 2m3f conditions race at Aintree so there was still a fair way to go until the finish but it went up to 101 after the race! I can understand if it had run really well until the last or second last but the race had barely started. Has anyone else noticed this sort of thing?

To an extent its opposite in National Hunt Side. I find the big graded handicaps of 0-160 and 0-180 have half the field running 'out of the handicap' because ratings are too low. Selling grade over jumps is around 85 (average) with horses nearer 90 often running in selling and claiming races. However in this game the 'poor' national hunt horses are rated as lowe as 45 (even seen a few rated 30). A rating of 45/50 over jumps is very unrealistic, with very few or no horses deemed that bad. Generally it is thought a 80 horse on the flat would be rated 100 over jumps. Therefore perhaps something in the NH rating system needs tweaking to get more realistic ratings, which will in turn help the big handicaps such as the Hennessy and National

The ratings will keep increasing as long as the horse finishes in the top 3. I had a horse over 120 that couldn't win graded stakes also. So eventually the horse won't win anymore until it loses a bunch of races and the rating goes down again and you can enter the horse in a 0-80 or 0-90 handicap because it can't win with the higher rating. I thought this was added to make the game harder to win because the ratings were more accurate in SO3. Right now they are worthless to be honest. You have to classify a horse based on the level it wins not on the ratings. 100+ rated selling race runners in the US game almost every day.

To be honest, I have only done testing with the default schedule so far. At first, it's true what you say about the 0-160 and 0-180 handicaps, but after about 8-10 seasons I did find that these races attracted horses rated much higher (from 120/130 up to 160/170), so most horses were within the handicap. However, the graded races would still only be attracting horses rated around 120-130. Strictly speaking, the Hennessy and the National should be Grade 3 H'caps, and that's how I plan to have them in my game, so it will be interesting to see how ratings are affected with a change of schedule. Once I have finalised my own jumps schedule I will test this.

"There has been no code added to 'restrict' horses to certain grades."

Ok, I accept that; perhaps I typed a little hastily. And what some of you are saying about the problem being related to the way in which the game calculates a horses's rating makes a lot of sense to me.

But what about these? (and please excuse my need to ventilate):

1) The horse that I mentioned above is now 4 & makes his seasonal debut in the Sandown Mile; the going is ideal & he seems well superior to the rest of the field. He gets a clear run & finishes second, beaten 1/4 length. The winner is a five yr old mare rated 21lb lower at the weights and who has run in 25 previous races and [/b] is still a maiden

2) My darling 3-yr-old filly in unbeaten in four starts, the latest being a complete splattering of the Nell Gwyn field. She prefers softer going and I'm being rather careful about stepping her up to a mile. However, the Newcastle Gold Cup looks ideal; good/soft going and nothing in the rest of the field within a stone of her, (she's rated 113).

So, provided she gets the trip, and provided that the jockey obeys instructions and doesn't ride her into a pocket or sit motionless for too long, and provided that she doesn't fall over, or get injured, or get a pink or red dot, then she should hack up shouldn't she?

Nope; she gets the trip but is beaten 3/4 length by another bloody 5-yr-old mare, rated 91 whose previous best in 25 runs has been two 8f c2 100 handicaps off 69 & 76, plus a c3 7f 90 handicap off 90.

Remotely logical explanations anyone?

[ps: not all doom & gloom this season mind you. It takes ages to count all that prize money after you've won the Dubai World Cup doesn't it?]

ooops, sorry about all the bold type; not quite sure how I did that.

Actually, my horse won the World Cup by 4 1/2 lengths and then the Ganay by 3 1/2. He's just been beaten in the Eclipse though; guess what beat him? This years Lincoln Handicap winner!!!!

Mind you, the winner had gone on to finish 8/17 in the 9f Earl of Sefton and is trained by a certain D.Nicholls, so I suppose that explains it.

I'll shut up now.

Ha ha, Orlando Beetle I totally agree with you! I'm having fun over the jumps atm because it's so long since I've had them so I haven't bothered too much with the flat yet. Also most of my good flat horses are currently 2yo's so I may update this with a rant when or if I make it to the second season.

Anyway, a prime example of this happened this morning. I entered my 3yo juvenile filly who wants 3m4f into a 2m5f claiming hurdle (...?!) she had previously been rated 69 after a couple of ok efforts in 2m7f and 2m5f NHF races (...?!). Naturally she won the claiming hurdle although only by two lengths. She's now rated 121! and her previous NHF form has been transferred to her chase rating!!!

So now I have a 3yo, 3m4f wanting juvenile filly who after winning a claiming hurdle over 2m5f by 2 lengths has a rating of 121 over hurdles and 69 over fences!!

Pleased? No, I now have a filly which I bought last Feb whom I couldn't race at all at the beginning and now I can't race for the rest of the season because her rating is too high to run in handicaps (another issue for another time... Although Panther did say that the handicap issue gets better with time... I hope you're right!)

Baffeled? Yes, I don't know which horse the handicapper was watching... Must have been that filly who won the Musidora and was second in the Oaks who ran in the subsequent novice chase...!

Still a great game and enjoying it hugely just a few little frustrations!

Supercat; I noticed the hefty penalties for NH claimer winners a while ago - came to the conclusion that the NH Official Handicapper must have access to an unlimited supply of mescalin.

Why not transfer your filly to a flat game until she's ready for the Gold Cup? Sounds like she would be a certainty for the Arc.

Oh, I nearly forgot! Five days after the Eclipse fiasco we had the July Cup. The field contained the various winners of the Breeders Cup Sprint, Golden Jubilee, Duke of York Stks etc etc. None of them were sucessful though, victory went to the winner of the City & Suburban handicap.

By four lengths. With a pink dot. Pass me that bicarb will you?