Yellow Dog Racing – Annual Report 2017

YELLOW DOG RACING

Six Monthly Stockholders Report:

History:

After the commencement of YDR in week 1593 of the SIM (Nov. 30, 2002) with the creation of the Dingo333 stable, the following stables were added

Ydracing in week 1608 (Dec. 15, 2002)

Ydracing1 and Ydracing2 in week 1621 (Dec. 28, 2002)

Ydracing3 in week 1720 (Apr. 6, 2003) and finally

Ydrbargain in week 1783 (Jun. 8, 2003) – which was created for a bargain bred contest run by Barndog’s old GSR residency.

YDR operated fully until early 2008, (although only very limited breeding took place – for instance 2005 saw a total of 7 2yo’s and 2 3yo’s bred for the entire year). From early 2008 operations were wound back with only sporadic racing and breeding until early 2010 when the horses (40+) and stables were abandoned.

At this time YDR had the following statistics

Stable	Races	W	P	S	Win %	ITM %	BP	USD Have
All Stables	3291	273	335	300	8.30%	27.60%	4413	$9,081,195
Dingo333	679	48	79	68	7.10%	28.70%	852	$1,322,103
YDRBargain	478	44	46	43	9.20%	27.80%	962	$3,456,986
YDRacing	699	69	89	58	9.90%	30.90%	668	$1,523,032
YDRacing1	467	30	23	38	6.40%	19.50%	683	$616,633
YDRacing2	436	31	40	32	7.10%	23.60%	404	$696,962
YDRacing3	532	51	58	61	9.60%	32.00%	744	$1,335,479

 

There was also a total of 2891 credits that had accumulated mainly from payments by the BTB for articles written (and some earned prizes)

The Resurrection:

After recently retiring I was looking for something to do during the day, so back in late April this year I came across an old email that had my password for the SIM. I wondered if the account was still operating and to my surprise not only could I log in, but all was exactly as I had left it, with SIM $, BP’s and credits still in the account. Not only that all the horses were still in their stalls much older and covered in cobwebs, some with zimmer frames. (I am surprised that the stables hadn’t been raided by the SPCA and all my horses rescued and released). After a quick look around to see what changes had been made to the SIM (and there were many) I quickly decided that re-entering this great game and community was definitely a way of giving me an interest and filling at least part of my daily life.

First order of business was to release all my long-suffering equine friends into a late but well deserved retirement, before deciding the best way to proceed into acquiring some racing stock.

This decision had 3 main options

1. Breeding: To this end the obvious choice was to select the best of my just retired old stock and send them to the breeding barn, unfortunately the original YDR didn’t really look to the future with it’s breeding and other acquisitions so prime breeding mares were not readily available.

Choosing the He-Mare route my 2 previous graded winners were sent to a stallion with the following resulting offspring

1. New Found Mine (Mineshaft x Newfoundland x Northern Dancer) ex Newfound Cyclone

Winner of 3 x Gr1 (Middle Jewel Princess Cup and Travellers) and 1 x Gr2 (Sand Castle Derby – now a Gr1 derby prep lock race) as a 3yo in 2006

1. Snitzel and Chips (Snitzel x Strike The Gold x Gone West) ex Sea King Cyclone Winner Gr2 (After Shave Sprint – twice placed Gr3) as a 3yo in 2007

Other breeding was completed with Mares in the 2^nd week of May

1. Spinning Squall (Bahamian Squall x Spinning World x Royal Academy) ex Royal Spinner Winner of 12 from 64 starts as a deep closer.
2. Slam the Clock (Elzaam x Galileo x Octagonal) ex Octilly Clock probably the best bred of all the mares I had available to me

The last of my initial breeding was completed 2^nd week of May to another He Mare

1. Americain Cyclone (Americain x Mr. Greeley x Storm Cat) ex Cat Five Cyclone 5 times placed at Graded level as a 2 3 and 4yo

 

1. Auction: I had never been a fan of wading through the auctions, but having a glut of SIM dollars at my disposal I decided on seeing what I could find that might at least earn me some BP’s at allowance level without risking losing to a claim. I settled on a 5yo horse called HIGH AND DEEP who had a record of – 29 starts for 11 wins 7 places 3 shows and nearly 500k in prize money. At a cost of over 2.2 million he certainly was no bargain. Since the purchase he has run 9 times for 2 wins 3 places no shows – 99 BP’s and $88135 prize money
2. Claims: The rest of my empty stalls were to be filled mainly by claiming and some future breeding as I got used to the variances in the game compared to my previous experience

Game Changes and How They Effected YDR Going Forward:

The main changes that made a huge difference on enjoying the SIM

1. Everyday Racing: Very quickly it was apparent that with races running every day I would want to have more horses available than the maximum of 60 allowed by my original 6 stables, thus began a gradual expansion of YDR from 6 to the current 22 stables. I envisage this expansion continuing over the next year or so to at least 40 stables but I doubt it will go as far as the 200 plus stables I have noticed other trainers coping with.
2. Hot Races: It took me a couple of weeks to work out what this innovation was, and I did throw a couple of underperformed horses into these races, but it very quickly became obvious that the main use of these races was to inflate a horses / trainers’ stats and had very little other use as BP’s were minimal for these races. From 6 starts in Hot races YDR has 3 wins 1 place and 1 show. It is doubtful that YDR will send any further horses to this form of racing.
3. RAFI: Although an earlier form of RAFI was available way back when YDR was originally operating, the current version is so much easier to use, making another good reason to expand operations.
4. Race Splitting: The current system of splitting non-stakes races once the maximum entry level of 14 starters is reached – rather than the old drawing in based on entry points and having to check each race manually to see where you landed in the order, as well as selecting a 2^nd choice race in case you got bumped, again made entering your horses so much easier. Again, a good reason to expand YDR’s operations.
5. Breeding: The advent of breeding cards, and the tweaking of the Credit/BP methods of obtaining Sires etc. has taken a while to get my head around (I still don’t understand the bidding system and how that works – so have just purchased my shares outright with BP’s or credits). I also need to study how mares become available for how much and when, mares I have owned I can follow but those I haven’t from what I have worked out seem to cost a huge amount.

The above changes certainly had one major effect on my return to SIM Racing, YDR Stables could expand without creating a lot of extra work to enter horses. The ability to move SIM $ between stables also allowed new stables to prosper quicker, as well as claimed and newly bred horses being able to be moved into any stable without penalty also assists greatly in filling empty stalls. To this end 16 new stables were opened over the year, 1 of which Ydracing6 was allocated to 2yo breedings and a couple of gift horses from Gcliffo (thanks mate).

The Claiming Game

With the decision to expand and 50 plus empty stalls from YDR’s original stables to fill the obvious way to go was claiming. Now this is where YDR had an enormous advantage over the new player just starting out, we had over 4000 BP’s and SIM$9 million at our disposal, which gave us the freedom to claim most anything we wanted. However, as the long-term plan was to breed our future stock it was decided to try and keep the majority of our claims in the $2-5000 range.

The following 210 claims have been made since we recommenced

$2000 (4 BP’s) – 43                          $6250 (12 BP’s) – 3

                $2500 (5 BP’s) – 18                          $7500 (15 BP’s) – 16       

                $3000 (6 BP’s) – 17                          $8000 (16 BP’s) – 2

                                                                                $10000 (20 BP’s) -14

$3500 (7 BP’s) – 22                          $12500  (25 BP’s) – 12

                $4000 (8 BP’s) – 13                          $15000 (30 BP’s) – 3

                $5000 (10 BP’s) – 40                        $17500  (35 BP’s) – 1

                                                                                $25000 (50 BP’s) – 1       

                                                                                $30000 (60 BP’s) – 1       

                                                                                $35000 (70 BP’s) – 3       

                                                                                $100000 (200 BP’s) – 1   ***

Total      153 (72.8%)                                        57 (27.2%)

*** It should be noted that this claim was made in error in as much I did mean to claim the horse but forgot to check the claim tag. This oversight cost me 200 valuable BP’s and so far after 8 starts has only returned me 28 BP’s. Of all the other horses I have claimed those with 3 starts or more only 3 others haven’t returned their initial outlay in BP’s) It is worth noting that they are all from the expensive claim side of the ledger

1 @ $12500, 1 @ $30000 and 1 @ $35000

There have been 24 horses that have returned in excess of 100 BP’s the top 6 performers being                 

 

Horse	Claim	Starts	Win	Place	Show	Prize $	Earned BP’s
Handsome Man	$5000	7	3	2	0	$75090	146
Lethal Curse	$12500	8	5	2	0	$81948	144
Vamp It Up*	$5000	7	3	3	1	$89990	138
Running Dog X	$2000	8	1	5	0	$19981	133
Attackattack	$2500	9	2	3	1	$50454	128
Sky Graduate	$3000	8	3	1	1	$47304	127

 

*Vamp It Up was claimed from us for $10000 (the only claimer I had started her in as her 6 month claiming condition had expired)

The percentages above seem to fall in line with the percentages we have claimed in as much as the smaller claims are definitely giving a decent return in both BP’s and SIM $.

Claiming, especially when you have a large number of stalls to fill can be a long laborious process especially if you want to keep your claimed horses in your stables and not turn them right back over and lose them to a claim. It is important that you try and claim horses you believe can step up to at least higher tagged claimers or better still Allowances and 6 months of starter allowances. Of the 210 horses we have claimed only 13 have been in turn claimed from us – 1 of which we just claimed back. Of these 13 only 1 was claimed for less than we paid ($3000 on a $4000 claim) and had only returned 5 BP’s against the 8 it cost us. 1 other was claimed for same amount we paid but we had made 20 BP profit on the 3 starts we had. The remainder we made $130k profit on the claims and 230 BP’s profit.

Before we put in a claim we have certain criteria that we need the horse to have, some of these are

1. Claim Tag: (try and stay within the limits you set yourself – this is easily done by scanning the claims races and not even looking at the horses in races outside your set tag range)
2. Breeding: If you are looking for future breeding stock rather than current BP earners then look at older horses that trainers are racing beyond their optimal racing lives and are being dropped into lower tagged claimers
3. Speed: Look for horses that have recent SP ratings that you believe can be improved also set SP limits for different age groups. Also, if a horse is showing slow SP’s but winning by 1 ¼ lengths or more it most likely was given a soft win and could have gone faster.
4. Longevity: In conjunction with speeds look for horses that haven’t been over raced. This is one of the major variances from when YDR was originally operating. Horses seem to hit the wall earlier (age wise) and also by number of starts. They also seem to perform better with a larger break between races. Look for the current (and previous) trainers training trends before deciding on a claim.
5. Opportunity: Look for horses that haven’t been tried on all surfaces distances, 1 start on turf may not necessarily mean it has been tried it could be that it had its 1^st race start on turf and never ventured back. Always check a prospects full race history.
6. Form: A horse with a high ITM strike rate can be a very profitable BP earner, but BEWARE that the percentage isn’t the result of continuous entry in HOT races (I fell for this early on)

 

By the end of 2017, we had 1364 starters with 226 wins and 450 places and shows combined giving a win percentage of 16.27% and ITM percentage of 49.56%. This gave YDR a new total result of

Stable	Races	W	P	S	Win %	ITM %
All Stables	4706	512	588	510	10.9%	34.2%

From restart until the end of 2017 YDR earned a total of 13753 BP’s in addition to the 4413 BP’s carried over. During the same period YDR spent 7622 BP’s on breeding and claims. This gave a starting balance of 10544 BP’s going forward into 2018.

SIM dollars earnt was nearly $6 million with just over $3 million spent on claims and auction and a further $1.7 million on travel and jockey fees. These figures gave a return of approx. 10 BP’s and sim $4400 per race.

 

Plans for 2018 Going Forward:

YDR expects the next 12 months to more of a building year with the emphasis on earning BP’s along with some low to mid-range breeding. It is also expected that expansion will continue and to this end 2 new stables have already been added. The aim will be to breed some proper bluebloods in early 2019 with both BP’s and credits, with the intention of trying to get an entrant into the 2020 Bluegrass Derby.

Yours

Linton aka dingo333

Owner Yellow Dog Racing

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