Spend A Buck: How One Of My Barns Hopes To Become Successful Again Through 10 $1 Auction Buys

On American cable TV is a show called Junk Brothers, a pair of brothers who go dumpster-diving, going into other people’s castoffs and finding a gem in the trash to clean up, refurbish, repair, and give back to the original owners as a brand-spanking-new item.  It makes for decent (HG)TV here, but what in the name of Granny’s nightie does it have to do with the Sim?  Well, I’ve set up an interesting twist on the Sim for myself, something where I can expand my interest in the game while trying to figure out what angles just might work, using what I know about the Sim in my experience.

I’ve been playing in the Sim now for two years, having signed up for my first stable back in September of 2004.  Since then, my Sim experience has been entertaining enough to have expanded my stables to…a number I’m not going to mention.  Let’s just say it has been a pretty rewarding one playing this game, and a majority of the horses occupying these barns are homebreds, having traded in the horses that didn’t work out and replacing them with my own breeding experiments.  If anything, the horse pool has been expanded by my new creations. That said, I’m always looking to change things up, to keep things new and interesting, to see what exactly I can do as a Sim trainer/breeder/owner. 

This idea started on a whim.  I have a stable that was struggling since the moment I created it.  The stable is named 1stsamurai, for the now-retired colt who was a strong success at 2, and an erratic one at 3.  From the start, it was up against it.  The horses I received initially were flops, the claims I made didn’t pan out, and the horses I bred more or less stunk.  In just 32 starts, I had one win.  That’s one, 1, uno, singular, unimpressive, pathetic.  I did have 4 thirds, and earnings too insignificant to remember.  It petered out as the namesake did, in the spring, and I just washed my hands of it.  I sent just about everything into the auction to be done with them, and kept only one homebred, and a Cozzene filly I wanted to breed over at 5.  The intent was to start from scratch, and…

…I never got around to it.  The two fillies were mediocre.  The homebred was traded in for a two-year-old I bred with the BP I managed to earn.  As for the Cozzene filly, I bought credits and bred her over early, to Refuse To Bend(IRE); the results are inconclusive.  With the vacant stable, I didn’t replenish it with active horses, but instead I used the money I had and started buying old mares that were left at auction, to use as broodmares.  1stsamurai was now just a holding stable for the new juveniles I bred, and when I would breed them, usually to inexpensive sires for credits, I shipped them off to other stables.  When Sim money got tighter, I would transfer unraced two-year-olds in, and ship them out as spaces opened up elsewhere in my empire.  I finally got to a point where I had 8 BP and $150 left.  Not much you can do with a barn that empty of hope and money, right?

That’s when it hit me.  I wanted this barn back up and running, and with lesser resources to breed new horses than previously.  I can’t claim, can’t breed that many horses with what little the barn had left, and didn’t feel much like letting it sit empty.  That left me with just one viable option: the auction.

As you know, there’s not much there there when you have all of $150 to spend.  I wanted to fill my empty, poor barn with a full field of 10, and see if I couldn’t turn this barn around with a whole lotta nothin’.  It dawned on me that maybe, if I can’t have superstars, maybe I could have fun.  So, I set forth with a plan: buy ten horses at auction, anything I could get, and not for breeding purposes (no breeding them over until/unless their time was up).  I could only spend a dollar on each.  If I got outbid, move on to another until the ten slots were filled with something.

Could 1stsamurai rise like a New Orleans from despair, relatively speaking, and become something special again?  The challenge was on.  And last week, 1stsamurai was a busy, busy barn at auction.  Ten horses, $10, and now the stable is prepping to start from scratch, with not a lot of resources.  There’s not going to be much in the way of stakes action with these; they’re all going to run wherever it is they belong, and I’m prepared to let the chips fall where they might.

What did $10 get me?

Tomb Bank, a five-year-old son of Albert The Great x Solford who has won three times in 51 tries.  He has not won since the end of last year, but is still capable of throwing in a decent race now and then.

Lea Peril, a two-year-old daughter of Chain Of Command x Astrodance who only got one mediocre grass race before being shipped to the auction.

HR Street Smart, a two-year-old son of Dixieland Heat x Hoist The Silver who’s been overmatched in three starts while not running too badly in any of them, all things considered.

Quick Mission, a six-year-old son of Strategic Mission x Stack who hasn’t won in 18 months but could be a decent claiming sprinter.

Lafayette Blues, a four-year old son of Touch Gold-Turtle Lady, by Tour D’Or that should be spotted better in claiming company and has a nice pedigree for the price of a buck.

Figger Of Speech, a two-year-old son of Victory Speech x Tabib who is a maiden through four starts, but shouldn’t be so long in breaking his maiden.

Star Lad T, a three-year-old daughter of Five Star Day x Icy Groom who took seventeen tries to win her first race, but who could be a cubic zirconium in the rough on grass.

Blushing Pony T, a three-year-old daughter of Onyxly-Forty Freckles, by Forty Niner who’s been doing OK in the claiming ranks, but could do better.

Bumper Pool(IRE), a four-year-old daughter of Black Tie Affair(IRE) x Slew O’Gold who’s well-bred, but struggling versus allowance horses and could benefit from some different TLC.

Boldly Reveal, a six-year-old son of Seacliff x Gone West who’s shown some life signs at his advanced age despite not having won a race in three years.

It’s a line-up that wouldn’t even strike fear in the hearts of the Oakland Raiders these days, but my goal is to turn this stable around enough so that I can soon breed a few decent horses, or at least claim a few better ones down the line.  It’s an experiment in seeing if one man’s trash really is another man’s treasure, and seeing if you can create something from some inexpensive auction purchases in this game.  It doesn’t affect my ability to get wins in any other barn I have, but it’s for fun, to see if I can go against the conventional wisdom of the Sim’s experts and succeed.  These horses will all make an appearance within a couple of weeks, when they all become “ready To Go” and I can set training dates for them.

You gotta spend a buck to make a buck, and I hope to even do better than that.  I’ll try and track my progress and let you know if it’s an idea worth pursuing, another new angle to bring some new success for the more adventurous players in this great game.