Cant wait for this panther. Been tweaking around with a combined schedule for the past few weeks to include mostly jumps but still have the chance to run in top handicaps. Any news on when it will be ready?

I hope to make a UK jumps-only schedule available at some point this weekend. I've been playing around with it when I've had a chance this week, and it's still very difficult to get the quality of fields just right at the Cheltenham Festival, especially with regard to the novices' races - some years they are high quality, some years they are not (especially in the novices' hurdle races), and I'm not sure why this is the case. Prepping the races helps a bit, but isn't ideal.

Great news that it will be available this weekend cant wait to try it out

Sorry, it's not going to be available tonight, but will make it available tomorrow night. There are a few things about it that are still a bit frustrating, such as the novices' hurdle system (I've opted to stick with novices' hurdles and drop juvenile hurdles from the final schedule - although they'll still be available in the showcases files for anyone that wants to add them) and the fact that horses' ratings drop very quickly after a couple of poor runs, meaning you sometimes get potentially top class horses running in handicaps, but I don't think these things can be helped until SO5.

My next project after this will be to release an up-to-date combined flat/jumps schedule, as I think I've figured out a way to get this working far more realistically than it does in the default schedule.

Cheers Panther, looking forward to it as im starting to get bored of my current save.

Any news Panther mate, really looking forward to this!!!

edit

Hi Panther, was hoping like a few others to get your jumps schedule. Any news my feline friend???

It's now as ready as it's ever going to be, and I will e-mail it out to anyone that wants it from tomorrow morning. To be honest, trying to create a highly realistic jumps-only schedule for SO4 has probably been the most frustrating task I've attempted with any of the SO series, for a number of reasons, to the extent where I'm probably going to give up on the jumps side of the game until SO5 comes along - however, I will still send the schedule to anyone that wants to try it.

Please read below before using the schedule:

Dates, Races & Prize Money

All dates and prize money (where known) is correct for the 2010/11 season. The graded and listed races are all correct as per the Pattern & Listed Race Book for the 2010/11 season. As for other races, the details are correct for all races up until the end of December, and beyond that they're correct as per the end of last season (unless the 2011 info is already known).

Novices' Hurdles

This has been the most frustrating part. I've tried it with all combinations: just with juvenile hurdles, just with novices' hurdles, and with both, and my own personal preference is to drop the juvenile hurdles and just stick with the novices' hurdles (the juvenile hurdles are in my showcase file though, so can easily be added if you choose). The other issue, however, is the fact that in many seasons the game just plain refuses to enter any decent novices into the novices' hurdles (especially the Supreme) at the Cheltenham Festival, and I have no idea why this is. Quite often when the initial declarations are made for the Supreme Novices' Hurdle, it's a selection of unraced horses, horses that have only previously run in NH Flat races, or horses that are rated below 100 - this is despite the fact that during the season similar races (with much smaller fields) attract a better quality of horse. I've tried to combat this by adding some extra novice events in February, so that there are three direct prep races for each of the main novices' events at the Festival. Ideally, this should work by having some decent horses added to the fields, and having some of the lowly-rated ones removed, but quite often it's the higher-rated ones that are removed, which is incredibly frustrating.

Horses' Ratings

In the SO4 jumps-only game, horses' ratings often plummet very quickly after a poor run or two. So, with Grade 3 H'caps in the game attracting horses rated up to 160 (and sometimes more), this creates the issue that these races are often full of horses that should really only be entering Grade 1 or 2 races. I know that you sometimes get top class horses in these races (Denman in the Hennessy, Menorah in the Greatwood etc) in real life, but these should be rare occurrences, not the norm. It means that sometimes you will get horses going for the William Hill Trophy at Cheltenham, when they should really be going for the Ryanair or Gold Cup. There are other clashes during the season too. Please note though, I have made the Grand National a 0-180 race, as it's the best way to ensure it has 30 runners most seasons.

Irish Races

I've tried the schedule with various numbers of Irish races included, and ended up going with just the Grade 1s and some Grade 2s, however, I've not included any Irish novice races, as they just fill up with UK horses after a couple of seasons (most Irish horses in the game don't seem to go through a novice season, however, the novice races will be available in the showcase file for anyone that wants to add them).

Please note, I have also rewritten the Irish showcase file with just the races that I believe are relevant to UK racing, so there are fewer than in the default file. This also means that my Irish showcase file won't be compatible with any existing Irish games or schedules that you use.

Field Sizes

To keep it as realistic as possible, most graded races have small fields (usually between 6 and 12 horses). Obviously the field sizes in handicaps and at the Cheltenham Festival will be larger.

Hunter Chases

I've included the Hunter Chases at Cheltenham and Aintree as conditions races for horses that haven't won a Class 1 race.

Any other questions, just ask, and if you'd like to try the schedule, let me know your e-mail address and I'll send the files to you.

I would love this panther.
My e-mail address is:

exxplozion at btinternet dot com

Thanks again for all your hard work, I will let you know how I get on and a happy xmas and new year...you have certainly made mine, cheers.

Thanks Panther, here's mine:

traynortraynor at hotmail dot co dot uk

I'd love this panther

email frontondis at yahoo dot com

On a side note i'd advise people not to put there email address's up like explosion and aintreematt as you'll all get spammed to hell by bots.

could i trouble u for the schedule panther mate my email is,

smith.michael163 at gmail.com.


thanks

id also be greatfull if u could email me a copy panther...if its half as good as ur gm2 schedule then that were in for a treat...many thanks and appreciation

My email is patrickandkatie@sky.com

if you could please email me a copy to tom_rogers7@hotmail.co.uk