{"id":10053,"date":"2012-03-13T20:46:33","date_gmt":"2012-03-13T20:46:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blacktypebugler.com\/?p=10053"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"oldbtb_99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/?p=10053","title":{"rendered":"This Week in SIM History"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Moment In Simulated Sports History:<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/p>\n

2yo DRAFT<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The advent of Spring at Derbyfever.com (also known as The SIM to its most loyal devotees) is accompanied by its own set of particular traits and traditions, just like the real world counterparts.\u00a0 No one knows if the trees inside of Mike Wallace\u2019s computer begin to bud, or if a long winter of post Breeder\u2019s Bowl glory (or agony) melts away like a digitized snowdrift, but the signs of the new season are readily apparent.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Two year olds.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

The urge to try out new stallions is irresistible; the chance to redeem those underachieving blue-blooded pedigree mares (and he-mares) comes again in the form of an unraced foal; love is in the air once again \u2013 and by \u2018love\u2019 I mean shards of simulated piggybanks being shattered as the Breeding Points and Credit coffers are emptied.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Hope springs eternal.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve already had a few weeks of 2yo racing, with its yearly buffet of triple-digit mutuals and 75 horses vying for 14 slots in the starting gate.\u00a0Prior to the first Derby Lock race, it is definitely the hottest game intown.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

But once upon a time, things worked slightly differently in our SIM.\u00a0Change is gradual but inevitable, and one particular change eliminated the need for one important rite of Spring that some veteran SIM trainers may remember wistfully (or woefully, or both). \u00a0Some of them are experiencing early onset of dementia (no names, please) and, like me, are lucky if they remember to wear briefs underneath <\/i>their trousers. \u00a0Just sayin’.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

You see, the concept of being able to breed your OWN horses (aka the Homebred) was introduced into SIM gameplay circa 2002.\u00a0 I know this because when I opened my first stable in 2001 (approximately week 652), the CPU stable bred and generated ALL the horses in the game.\u00a0If you dig deep into some current horses\u2019 ancestry, you might find some equine founding fathers such as SIM legends ENOUGH KNOCK and SEATTLE HIT.\u00a0 These horses existed at the beginning of Simulated Time\u2026 but where did new horses come from if you couldn\u2019t breed them?<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

The 2yo draft was an elaborate system by which trainers were sorted into a pecking order which permitted them to \u201cdraft\u201d from a pool of newly-bred 2yos every year.\u00a0 This pool was not unlike the one that a new stable would pick its 5 \u201coriginal horses\u201d from, but in this case the CPU bred and named them all.\u00a0 You could peruse the list like a Keeneland Sales Catalogue of sorts, but there was no guarantee you\u2019d get the horses you coveted\u2026 that was up to the CPU man upstairs.\u00a0 SIM historian Squirrel dug up this ancient hyperlink with some rather complex instructions that certainly would have been daunting to a logic-challenged individual such as myself\u2026take a look at the link, if you dare:<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.simulatedsports.com\/hr\/2yodraft.html<\/font><\/a><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

So many new horses that needed original monikers, and unlike their real world counterparts, you couldn\u2019t make suggestions to the Jockey Club after they were born.\u00a0 This resulted in some names that clearly only computer entities like Hal and Banana Jr. 6000 could love\u2026 lots of prepositions and adjective\/verb combos, whereas today\u2019s CPU breds (mostly filler for fields which don\u2019t attract 4 human trainer entries) seem to be lifted straight from the phone book.\u00a0 Wait\u2026 does anyone under 30 know what a phone book was?\u00a0 \u201cPaper doorstop\u201d and \u201cthose square things we take to be recycled\u201d are not acceptable answers.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0The sire stats system that is in place now was merely a glimmer in Mike\u2019s eye in those days, so selecting a top horse was a little more of a crapshoot than today\u2019s ticker-based system (viva Capitalism?)\u00a0 In fact, the entire game was \u201cfree\u201d to play in those heady days of internet advertising revenue, where simply clicking on a webpage or an advertising banner would generate gobs of incoming scratch to keep the game running (this could be its own “This Week” \u00a0article\u2026)\u00a0 Alas, the golden years of Silicon Valley and internet cash cow revenue did not last \u2013 thankfully, Mr.Wallace intervened and created a system which kept the \u201cfree\u201d option in place\u2026but there would be no need for the CPU to generate a vast pool of horses to replace the older ones who were no longer viable runners\u2026 at least for the time being.<\/o:p><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1st in a Series of Simulated Specials<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}