Things learned in one year playing the sim.

I am a couple weeks late posting my final installment of my first year journey through the game. It was late March 2015, and being a horse racing fan, I found myself browsing through the pages of Horseracingnation. Watching videos, looking over pedigrees, past performances and so forth for the Derby prep races. In the process I noticed a couple banner ads on top of the page. One was for a game called Derbyville. Most of you play the game known as Dervyfever, but this ad was for Derbyville, and really its the same game by different names. I get asked this question sometimes in the chat room. Most players have a DF by their name, mine has a DV.

So, I clicked the ad to see what this Derbyville was all about and I was brought to this game, I had one stable with a few god awful horses in it. I quickly discovered hot racing, and ran a couple of those with the awful horses I was given. They did not fare very well, and I was ready to give up on the game very quickly. I decided to read the entire help section, which led me to some youtube videos. This really opened my eyes to the real excitement of the game, breeding. I retired a mare, bought a cheap share of Colonial Affair, and was sure to have a winner. Yeah, that worked about like you would expect, It got crushed in its first race but my interest had been grabbed.

I thought to myself, I know pedigrees, I know racing, I probably know it better than people playing some online game that aren’t even horse racing fans. So I bought some credits and bred what I considered to be a solid pedigree horse that would have no problem winning races as a young 2yo. On April 10th 2015 Vendetta Mesa http://game.horseracingnation.com/onehorse_inline.asp?horse=11600027604 started her career with an open length win in a hot race. Hot races giving you that instant gratification, I was too inexperienced to realize that you really don’t learn anything about your horse when you run them first start in a hot race. You also may lose that maiden tag with a horse that is not very talented, only to languish in alw n2l races and never hit the board again. Trust me, I had several like that.

In the meantime, I discovered the chat room and met some great folks in there. Spinround, Squirrel, Roxy, Matty, Cadet, Awkwardandchai, Summerset, Casino, Deeprock, Ace, Daniel, Trotter, Frankster, Driver1000, Liam and others. I apologize if I did not mention your name. What I found in chat actually surprised me. I found a room full of very knowledgeable folks that were willing to help me get going and understand the game better. Many sent gift horse to me to race, but mostly it was a great place to share knowledge and help each other. Something I try to pay forward as I meet new players myself.

Fast forward a couple weeks and Vendetta Mesa,  that fateful filly goes on from that hot race victory to win a listed stakes race in her second start. This is probably the worst thing that could have happened to me, because I felt like I could do no wrong after this. So anyway, yes I won my first stakes race about 1 month into playing the game. This led to more breeding and expanding without any real strategy going forward. I just kept breeding cheap scratchbred horses with decent pedigrees, mainly from old classic pedigrees of the 60’s-80’s. Some good, most not very good.

It did not take long for me to realize that I needed to learn how to be more patient. Patient in two ways really, looking back I was racing my young horses too often and most of them too early. I needed to give them more rest between starts and I needed to just wait before starting some of them. Really the better classic distance sire lines tend to mature later in life, so running your supremely bred Sea the Stars 2yo in March is probably a bit foolish. I know now that race distances advance with the age of the horse. So running your router in 5F races in March is also kind of useless. This is a lesson I learned going into my second year of the game.

Throughout the year, I spent a really stupid amount of money buying credits and breeding horses that were of lesser pedigrees than I should have. I kept spending my time looking for “value” when buying shares. This led to some nice horses but very few really good horses. By the end of 2015 I must have bred 500-600 horses and spent close to $1000 buying credits. I ended up with 45 stables full of some nice horses and a bunch of garbage horses. On December 31st, I emptied my BP’s and credits buying shares and breeding horses with a mind to start 2016 fresh and with a strategy in mind.

I have spent the first third of 2016 re-evaluating the way I have been operating my stables with the knowledge I have gained over the past 9-12 months. At the end of this article I will recap everything I have learned in an easy to follow format.

My results as of the moment I am writing the article. 4489 starts  15.5% wins 45% in the money. These numbers have come up quite a bit in the past 3 months. The reason this numbers have increased in the past 3 months is because of actions I have taken with my stables. First of all I got rid of all the junk horses via auction, there is no need to hang on to horses that simply will not win races for you. Second and it goes with the first, you need to learn when to let go of a horse. No matter how much you spent, how much you like the pedigree, or whatever reason you need to let them go if they cannot perform for you. Some will show you some life and those you should put on the farm for several months and race them later to look for improvement. Others just need to be cut loose. Here is a good example http://game.horseracingnation.com/onehorse_inline.asp?horse=11600024721  this is a good example of several mistakes made with the same horse. 2 hot race wins in its first 2 starts, followed by jumping to stakes race. I ruined this horse before it had a chance. It has not won a race that was not a hot race and I still own this horse. This thing should have been cut loose a long time ago but I held on after ruining it early. This only kills my stats, earns me nothing, and is a constant reminder of mistakes I made early on. Now he serves to educate players in what not to do.

Here are my keys for new players.

1. Rest your young horses at least 6-8 weeks between races and do not run them more than 6 times as a 2yo.

2. Don’t waste your money looking for value in sires. The best sires are expensive for a reason. If you want to consistently breed quality horses you need quality blood lines.

3. Be patient, do not rush to stakes races, do not hot race quality horses, and do not race router pedigrees early in their 2yo seasons. If breeding for route or distance and you are scratch breeding, I would suggest you breed them as 3yo horses so you don’t have to wait a year to see what you have. My best horse Lemonelamou was bred as a 3y0 horse and has won 6 of 10 starts and stakes placed on turf and dirt.

4. Learn to let go, horses that are not performing well need to be cut loose via claimer races and auctions. If you find a level in claimer they can win, that is great. If they can’t win and don’t get claimed, dump them in auction.

5. Do not ignore the claiming races. You can find good horses cheap in claimers. I like to look for big class droppers and I will run them back in starter alw races for as long as I can. I have claimed horses for 4BP’s that have won 4 consecutive races since claiming them. They are a good way to build BP’s quickly.  You can also sometimes find decent breeding mares in claimers. They will be sought out by several players and you will lose more shakes than you win. Be persistent and you will win a few.

6. Join a residency, joining a residency allows you to meet other players and gain more knowledge. They also often have contest that you can join and potentially win credits or well bred horses.

7. Visit the chat room and meet other players.

8. Read all the online horse information you can get your hands on. This is your best way to really learn about pedigrees and racing.

Other subjects like claiming and breeding strategies I have covered in previous articles.

After a year in the game. I have 5 stakes winning horses, 2 Graded placed, 7 stakes placed horses. Many others on the cusp of getting pretty good. I’ve learned some hard lessons and just now feel like I am developing a solid strategy for the future. I’ll be breeding far fewer horses and they will be high quality.

Enjoy the game, its very enriching and challenging. I love the challenge, and its very satisfying to see something you create run well. Yeah its just bits and pixels but I really enjoy my cartoon horses.