Newbie Diary Week #2 – No place to go but up!

I left off with last Saturday’s runners all losing, but a sense of excitement that still lingered.

Well the Sunday after brings me to politic for a name change. (no, not my stables’)  ‘Sunday’ will now be known as Breeding Day or ‘Breeday’ for short. (It has a nice ring…try it a few times!)

Now, I understand that ‘newbies’ shouldn’t be breeding their first week, yada, yada, yada…until they know what they are doing. You might be correct. But, just because I “hear” everything my wife of 16 years tells me, DOESN’T mean I “listen”!

Please, please, please, continue to tell us what we ‘should’ do, we’ll continue to make some mistakes (like the good children we are). Don’t get frustrated. Just tell us louder……. Don’t worry, us newbies will grow up and take care of you grizzled vet trainers when it’s time for you to go to the Trainer’s Nursing Home.

But I digress….

I personally am a research nut. I learned EVERYTHING in the world about cigars/cigar smoking, just to enjoy a couple summer months a few years ago, when the stars aligned & I had a few extra days to play golf and “hang” with the boys.  Now I have a cigar box full of cigars, I haven’t had one in over a year, but I know the origin of each leaf & birth date of the person who wrapped them! Sheesh….

Breeding = Research to me. I researched sires/dam sires/dam’s dam’s sires. I looked at sim records, real life records, offspring, inbreeding, breakfast cereal choices, stud fees. Yeah, even the stud fees. The guy who gets the most cash for that action, MUST be the best sire! You have to admit they finish off their lives pretty darn well, IMHO. I had some early ideas of what kind of horse I wanted to produce(don’t tell my wife about this…) and I decided I want a FAST one. Sounds easy. One of the first SIM horses I checked out was some combo of Kingmambo x Pleasant Colony x Nijinsky II . That horse was a winner! It would have some good turf capability as well, which is good because my new residency is based on mostly Euro tracks. So, with credit card numbers now memorized, I plunk down another $20 to breed my first “special” horse. Wha..…whaddya mean “NO” credit sire for Kingmambo?  I am BUYING the darn horse! Well, I guess I’ll have to switch up the combo a bit. After a couple of dozen more “NO’s” I find a combo I seem to like, but nowhere near my original plan. I did spend another 3-4 hours of research, though, so I’ll be ready next time.  We’ll see what happens next week.

I mentioned that I started a second stable last week. Well IT ROCKS! Now if I can get my hands on a couple dozen more e-mail addy’s I can be like you guys! (Spammers must LOVE you!)

Ok in my 2^nd stable, aptly named, alphonso2, I received 5 new horses. Two of them have never run a race, and 1 has only run once. (see, I’m getting good at this) I also spent the rest of my credits on a couple of hastily bred , “somewhat of a “ bargain, horses.

BTW- I think the “bargain” bred horses are a farce!

Either this option is in the sim to fill up newbie stables with more bad horses(the only ones we can afford). OR to stroke the egos of the vet trainers (who might just be “bored” with their 100sp stakes horses) to show that they know the “right stuff” when it comes to breeding!

Disclaimer- Tongue is FIRMLY planted in cheek here, so nobody be offended!

Having a second stable has meant now I am TWICE as unproductive on Saturdays at work, and ONE-FOURTH as attentive to the goings on in my home during the week! Are all you people single, eccentric, millionaires living out some extended online life? The SIM already runs my weekly schedule. I get up in the morning, check my horses. I pause at work, check my horses. Come home at night, check my horses…..Where the heck are they going to go?! Do I really need to “check” on them? Aargh…

BUT, the second stable DOES give me a TWICE as good of a chance of winning a race. And I finally DID!!

The horse is called Dusty Steer. #63194 He is an 8yo male I threw in a MSW in Washington and he came from way back to WIN! Now I broke MY maiden! Just when the darn game gets really frustrating, bang, I get juiced up again. I had a couple of other “firsters” come out with a nice showing, and some of my other horses are dogs in disguise, but I love them anyways. I don’t think you guys should be checking the rear view mirrors yet, but I am coming. I’m way, way, way, way, back there, but I’m coming.

I am also forging a little more of an identity within the sim. Besides the genius of naming my stables all alphonso, alphonso2, etc. All of the horses I have bred have Walt Disney related names. So now you can be on the look out for Disney named horses and jump in races to squash me. (but that’s OK, I’ll get you back one day)

That’s about it for now. But let me give you a small taste of how this game is working its way into my life. (and a preview of next weeks’ entry)

My 13 year old son (Freckled Roan –homebred  Dan X Colleen X nature) is a flourishing youth hockey player who is quite adept at reading pp’s as I learned at Belmont last week! (he also has his OWN e-mail address…..hmmmmmmm)

-Alphonso (Dan Puffer)