From Rags to Riches: The Story of My First Graded Winner

The year is 2005, and I am sitting at home with my parents.  My mom decides that we should watch a movie as a family.  “Dreamer: Inspired By a True Story” is a new release, and we decided that it looks good.  Kurt Russell and Dakota Fanning do a great job of portraying the story of Mariah’s Storm, a horse who broke a bone in a leg, and then was nursed back to health only to win a Breeders Cup Race.  My young self decides that I want to find out more about the sport and game of horse racing.  I start to look into the cost of owning a race horse, and realize that….. well let’s just say it’s a little out of my funds.  So where else do you begin to look besides the internet?  It is then, that I stumble on a site called derbyfever.com.

I sign up for my first stable, dydalt, and begin to learn the layout of the game.  I quickly realize that it will take a lot of time, effort, and participation to get to the level of the best players in the game.  I am determined though, and within months I am swept up so much into the game I can barely focus on homework.  Bring in problem 1.  As I start to lose track in my grades and studies, I realize that this game is taking over a lot of my time.  I take my first break from the sim here, yet to win a stakes race, and with a few lucky allowance winners.

It is upon my return that I meet and really kind of get to know a few sim players.  Skunkbarn and Squirrel are two of the people who have mentored me the most.  I can remember nights in the chat for the sim just talking to Squirrel and asking a lot of questions.  Skunk on the other hand I met through the Blazing Saddles residency.  With a few nice donation horses from the both of them, I begin to really try and get to know what is going on in the sim.  I have quite a few promising two year olds, and one even won a two year old Blazing Saddles stakes race.  I pictured him right then and there being my first graded winner.  He was going to do it, I knew it, and then another stepping stone, college.  Bring in problem 2.

As I start my college career, I see just how much time this is going to take up.  I begin to think that the game may be a little overwhelming.  I see that Mike has posted a few new things about a possible change in the sim to a new game.  I looked at this as a time where it was probably best to take a break, focus on my studies and my college education.  I begin to slowly work my way away from the sim, still yet to have a graded winner.  I begin to think that it may never happen as I still have yet to grasp the whole breeding thing, and I do not quite invest as much as others into the game.  Off and on for the next two years I play the game.  When I say I rarely played, I mean it as it was a race for a few horses here and a race there.  Nothing sustained or able to get the horses in a rhythm.

March of 2014 rolls around, and I start to hear of the upcoming Kentucky Derby.  I had just taken a road trip to the nearest track to me, and it rekindles the fire in me to own a race horse of my own.  I realize the probability of this is slim to none, especially at the present, and I decided once again to take a deep look into the world of computer horses.  I begin to slowly work my way back into the game, and it was my first real attempt at the new game, the new site, the new looks, everything is new.  What’s not new?  The players, for the most part, are all the same, the objective is still the same… win, and I still am yearning, fighting, waiting for that GRADED win.

It was during one of those off and on spells of 2012 that I made an investment in a horse named Gato De Azul.  A mare whose longest race was in an 8 furlong maiden race was running in a 4 horse field, 7500 dollar claimer.  I was expecting it to run fourth, and was just hoping that this girl, who was in her first ever claimer, could just get me some BP’s in the future.  She ended up running second with an 82 speed figure in a 13 furlong claimer.  I thought to myself man, with those speeds in the distance races, she could certainly earn me some BP’s.  A 3^rd and 2^nd in a few starter allowance races led me to a 150,000 claiming race where she ran first.  After a yearish break, I again started to enter races here and there.  She ran first in an allowance and starter allowance race.  When March of 2014 rolls around I enter her into an allowance race, just a small 6 horse field.

She runs 5^th with a 75 speed figure.  Upset with the way she ran, and just being a little dumb, I enter her into a 40k claimer in her next race.  She responds with a  1^st place finish, and wins by 4 lengths.  Looks like another allowance try is in the future because I was fortunate enough to NOT lose out on her to anyone claiming her.  A month later, I was looking for the best allowance race possible when I notice a short field of 3 in a Grade III race.  Entering her way over her head would just be not smart by everything that I had been taught.  With a four horse field though, it was possible that she could place, and the thought of winning was certainly there.  The night before carding, I decide to go ahead and keep this girl entered (still 4 horses).

I wake up the next morning to find a 5 horse field, and my girl at surprising 3/1 odds.  No way in heck she wins, but there is certainly a chance she places.  The days creep by, and I kind of forget that I have a graded runner going.  The day is Sunday, May 4^th, 2014.  (May the 4^th be with you was going through my head the whole day)  I am returning to college from my short trip home when I remember the graded race I had running earlier in the evening.  I get home, and open my laptop, the want to just check the results right there.  I decide to watch the race, just to be surprised, and to no surprise my girl jumps out to the lead.  Surprisingly she is still leading at the 3^rd call, by over 8 lengths!!!  I was…. surprised to say the least, to see my girl, kicking butt in a small, yet still Grade III race.  When she crossed the finish line, a resounding yell of happiness, and relief shot out of me, so loud that my roommate jumped and asked what the heck happened.  I finally did it, won my first ever graded race in the sim.

From here the dream still goes on, and the goals are reset.  No longer is the goal to get a graded win, but to win multiple graded races, to win a Grade II, and a Grade I.  I want to win the Bluegrass Stakes Grade I, and maybe even sweep the Oaks and Derby in the sim some day.  I want to have a horse of the year, and have multiple graded winners.  I want to own a real race horse, and then someday run in the REAL Kentucky Derby.  The goals are not gone, not accomplished, just rewritten.  Something to work for, something to continue to watch for, something to hope for is still there.  Someday it may or may not happen, but I can certainly say that this has been the best game that I have played anywhere, and that includes Xbox and PS3.  For now I leave you with the link to the FIRST ever graded winner out of the dydalt stables, and I hope that some time in the near future, I can write again, about my first Grade I winner, my first real horse that I own, and maybe, just maybe, that Kentucky Derby runner.  “Started from the bottom now we here,”  Both Gato De Azul and I started from the bottom, and now we are here!  Until then, I present to you Gato De Azul, winner of The Water Cube Stayer Grade III!

http://derbyfever.com/horseracing/onehorse_inline.asp?horse=11100031477

***Special Thanks to squirrel (Tracy) and skunkbarn for all they have done for me though the years.  Thanks to Mike for making this game great, and for keeping this going.  Thanks to all the players over the years that have helped me out, and thank you to the community of sim racers.  Without all of you, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU, the game would not be the same.***

*** To the new players that may read this, I want to say to you, NEVER GIVE UP!  I know it may seem like forever (8 years for me) but your goals will be reached!  Set attainable goals, and keep asking around for help.  You can do it, and just believe that sometime it will come.***