And you're seeing horses with one run, one win running in 2 and 3 year old novice races?

I am getting them on the stock schedule. Not many and only done 1 season since patch but they are there.

Have only looked at 2 year old Novice races as I'm in April in my game and as you know there's a shed load of races for 2 year olds at that time of year, I can start checking 3 year old races too, but I don't play over the weekend (it's time with the wife time) from the races I've seen, there are winners now running in Novice races and hopefully this will continue. As previously stated, I do play very slowly so it takes me a long time to run through a month or two.

All I need now is for Mark to upgrade the schedule and I will then start a new game so all the changes can take effect from the beginning of a game as I'm still playing the save I started when I bought the game.

If you have a horse win its debut, are you then able to enter it into novice races? I have had it on a number of occasions now where horses I've had that win their debut at 2, and dont run again that season, cant be entered into novice races the next season.

Yes I've been able to enter novice races having won their first race. As for the second part of your question, my game hasn't even moved on a month since the patch so unable to comment on horses running once and winning at 2 then being eligible for Novice races at 3. They should be, but whether they are time will tell.

No you should run it in a novice race in the same season it won it's maiden.

Otherwise you have to take the stakes races or handicap route!

In that case, if you are seeing the same thing then this must be a bug, as horses should be able to run in novices after winning a maiden or novice on debut regardless of whether it's the same season or not.

Novice eligibilty has changed to reflect the BHA website 0.140:

* Not won more than 2 flat races.
* Not won a class 1 or >= 2 class 2 races

Novice 3yo up races:
* Winning horses with >= 3 runs EXCLUDED.

But the issue I'm having is with horses that have ran once and won once, particularly if this run was at 2 years old, and then not being able to enter novice races at 3 year olds, when there is no reason they shouldnt be able to. I haven't even seen horses that have won their first ever run at 2 then running in a novice race on their second run the same season, although others I think have said that they have seen this.

I've not had a problem winning on debut then entering novice races in the same season, even before the new patch, it's something I almost always do. With the patch I now can enter novice races in the following season so everything seems ok here.

Ok, great. I actually wrote that before realising there was a new patch so sorry for that.

The AI race entries are definitely looking a lot better! Thank you for Mark for making the changes. The schedule I'm working on is looking the most realistic I have ever had, albeit still with the use of conditions and rating limits on some races to encourage more realistic fields.

One thing I would really like is to have the ability to completely restrict races to only horses from the nationality of the race. So for example, restricting an irish race in a uk schedule to only Irish horses so Uk horses couldnt run. I know there is the option to add the <EXTFIELDSPEC>home, but this doesn't appear to completely restrict the races. I personally would prefer to have void races in lower class races than have races filled with horses from other nationalities if there is not enough from the home nationality of the race. This would allow when modding to be able to add races to the other nationalities without worrying that they will fill up with unrealistic runners from a mix of the other nationalities.

I hope what I have said makes sense.

Yep, just got into a new season on my main vanilla UK flat game, and entries and race availability look sane. I will need to play at least a couple of seasons then to see how the ratings cascade from that. Looks promising, and it will take me a while ...

I have just had the guineas meeting and the fields for both races actually looked like classic fields, this is a major improvement

I've noticed that many of the extras you can add to a race in the showcase files don't actually work. This was also the case in SO6.

So the <RTGLIMIT> which is intended to add a rating limit to a race so that horses above that rating don't enter the race, doesn't really work.
<EXTFIELDSPEC> which can be 'home' or 'international' also has absolutely no effect. Whether a race has a home tag or an international tag or neither, the field is the same. This is frustrating because it would be really good to be able to restrict races to only home fields. This would make for more realistic fields and therefore horses with more realistic form, as well as this, certain races, for example Japanese classics are restricted to only Japanese trained horses, so it would be really great to be able to do this in the game.

Also there seems to be a issue with prep races, now it is possible to have more than 10 prep races, but it seems that some of the races used as preps never lead on to the race they are preps for. I've noticed this particularly with classics, for example I can never get horses that won races such as the National stakes in Ireland or the Beresford Stakes to run in the English 2000 guineas, even though they are always prepped to do so.

I think it would be good if the <EXTFIELDSPEC> tag worked properly and actually restricted races to either home or not, otherwise it doesn't serve a purpose. This way when having second nationalities we could essentially fine tune this so that only races we really wanted to have horses from that second nationality run in contained these horses. Because I've noticed a lot of races that don't attract Irish horses for instance have a lot in the game when Ireland is the second nationality to a UK game, whereas races that would such as derby trials never have Irish horses in.

I also like that minor races are added to the other nationalities, such as supporting maiden races, but I think there should be more. These ones that are in built seem to attract more realistic fields than maidens added from the showcase file, but there isnt enough of them for almost any horses to run and have the full form.

Another thing that would be great would be to have some kind of condition to add to a race in the showcase file that prevents a horse from running in that race if they've ran in the last however many days. Its very frustrating when the winner of the Chester Vase then runs in the Dante as an example.

Essentially I'm all for anything that can be added to races in the showcase files that give us as players a little more control over the AI entries, so that we can encourage races to have more realistic fields. I think this may be the easiest solution to the issues with AI entries. I don't know how easy or difficult it is to add extra conditions or restrictions such as these, but if it is possible it would be great, as they would be optional too and so only have an impact on the game if the player chooses.

Thanks