My life as a Simnewbie
Part 6 : prepare for battle
The big first raceday in my new stable is coming nearer and nearer. I have waited till the cards were posted to start writing this article.
If you go back to the part 3 of the "My Life As A Simnewbie"-series you will see which horses were in my stable at the beginning and you have a brief analysis on each horse.
This is the startingpoint.
I always do this for every horse so that when I have to find a suitable race for my horses I know what to look for.
4 of my horses were trained for week 2671 and one for week 2685. Of the four only 3 came sharp and one is RTG. I decide to race them all.
There are four things I always do before races:
- search for a suitable race and sign up for it
- just before the entries are closed check whether the horse is
probably in or not. If yes, no problem. If no: I search for
another suitable race to put the horse in
- After my entries I do my jockeyselections
- After jockeyselections I look at jockeysettings and sometimes I
change them
We go through each step.
1. Search for race and sign up
I can not decide on what horse should be put in what race, but an analysis of each horse can help to give you a startingpoint. Always remember that as a newbie your first concern is to make bp's. It does not matter which way you do this. If you have a really bad horse which is sharp you can search for a race with max 4 horses entered. That way you increase your chance to get bp's out of that horse, regardless of whether the ground or the distance suits.
Please also note that as long as you do not have raced 20 races with a stable you do not have to pay travelcosts when these are below 300$. If I have a bad horse and I can not find a low field and I enter him in a larger field I make sure that I cut the costs as much as possible as the horse is not really worth it. For better horses you can decide on travelling further.
Money is not so important in this game but if you are a newbie I do not want to advise to travel a horse from US to Europe and loose 10,000$ with that. Once the money has been rolling in and you have better horses you can do that. For finding races and checking entries I always use this site: http://sinoboy.net/sim/RaceFinder.do
81070: Deluxe Lard
I had really some difficulties to get this one signed up. As seen the analysis two issues ago, this one prefers turf and classic distance. I had entered it in a 9f race but on thuesday I noticed that I was probably not in the race. So I scratched from the race and entered in race 2671.6004: this is a low 4K 1mile Turf claiming race with a full field. This could be perhaps a little bit to short but you never know. The odds I got for this race are 18/1 and by the looks of it perhaps top 5 is possible.
81601: Golden Stone
In my analysis I had said that this one could grab some points in a low classic turf claimer. I could not find a race like that and actually this one is in the same race as Deluxe Lard and was signed up earlier on. Odds are not good at 23/1 so I do not expect to much out of it as it is racing in a full field.
49234: Magor Missabib
If you have read the analysis this was one of the better horses in that stable. Instead of dumping him in a claimer where he probably belongs I just decided to try out a low starter allowance of 10 furlong on dirt with 6 entries. Odds I got where 7/2 and off course I hope for top 5 and some bp's. I know this horse never ran further than a mile but this low field of 6 is my ideal chance to see what this one can do on a longer distance.
81740: Zayyawillsmile
It was difficult to enter this one in a race. In the analysis I told that there were no real sparks in her races but I had a hunch that turf would be the best ground. Sprints did not work out and I chose a 7.5 turf MSW for this one. It is races at Friday so at this moment I still am not sure whether it will make the card or not.
I’m also not expecting too much of this one.
Well, the entries or done, so time for the next step.
2. Selecting Jockeys
In the game you can choose 20 jockeys per week per stable. You do not have to choose your jockeys but you may. What I most of the time do is this: I check out which horses I entered on which tracks per stable: so let’s say that at a certain week I have 4 horses running in a stable. Then I choose 5 jockeys per track if it is all different tracks and these I enter.
I must say that I do have my doubts with the selection of the jockeys as I do not know whether it has such an influence. Off course you see jockeys with higher stats as others and there will be a difference but it also is some kind of selffullfilling prophecy: the best horses have first choice in jockeys; so they probably choose a jockey with good stats. By this kind of selection the jockeys with the best stats will have the best horses and it is difficult for the other jockeys to get into the points with lesser horses. So are the jockeys with lower stats are so bad? I have my doubts. So maybe jockeyselection is a bit overrated?
Still: overrated or not, to be on the safe side I select my jockeys.
3. Riding Options
One thing that has a lot of influence I think, are the riding options and you really should take a look at that, certainly for your better horses.
Riding Options are done for each horse and can have a value from 0 to 1 or can be set on Jockey Select.
For horses that have not ran that much it is wise to put the settings on Jockeyselect. That way you will get to know your horse better: if you see him race in front and see him drop back completely at the end of the race you might try to restrain him next time from taking the lead.
Now how do you know how to set your Riding Options? I think it is a tough process to get through and I still feel I am a newbie in that area.
What I do is this: I look at the horse’s best results in similar races as where I entered it and check how the horse ran at the different controlpoints C1 C2 C3 and finish: check on placing and distance behind leader. And from there I try to determine what I would like the horse to do.
Some examples based on my entered horses:
81070: Deluxe Lard
The last race it ran on 9f turf there where 7 starters. At checkpoint 1 it was in 5th place only 2 lengths from the leader. So it never lost too much touch with the leader and came back very good to win. If you look at earlier results you see that the horse ran best when it did not lost contact with the first horses. So this one seems to run best in the first half of the pack. Therefor I put the settings to 0.8 . I would have set the settings on 0.7 but since the race is a bit shorter then what it is used to I put it a bit higher.
81601: Golden Stone
I had two options for this one. Since the competition probably is too high and the field is too big for this one I could have left it to Jockey Select but I chose to try to get this one in the middle of the pack and then see what happens. Settings put on 0.5.
49234: Magor Missabib
This horse is running 2 furlongs more than what it has ever done. If you look at past performances this one also likes to run in front of the pack. Still since the race is long and 10 furlong I think it has plenty of time to come back and I do not want it to go too fast in the beginning so it gets burned. I also do not want it to take the lead when I put the settings too high and the other trainers put them lower. So therefore I chose a setting of 0.6 and we will see what happens.
81740: Zayyawillsmile
This one was easy. She never ran good and I do not have a clue on how to put the settings so I just left it on jockeyselect and hope that after the race I have a better view on this horse.
When you look at the riding options screen you notice the Riding % field. Till now I never used that so I can not tell anything decent about it.
Well that is about it: choose a race, enter the horse, check a few times during the week, select your jockeys and do the riding options.
On the gamesite you will find schedules on when everything needs to be done. You just have to make sure that you have a race and jockeys before the cards are drawn.
Greetings and have fun
Ce5s97p@hotmail.com
