Initial Training to assess your horses
The entire game is built around understanding how to apply the information that is provided. There's almost nothing secret about it. The fundamental basis for skill is how a player uses that information to make decisions. Hence, the game is not here to tell you how to do that but rather that is the point of the game. It is competitive by nature and skill is by far the governing factor.
To help new stables to get started in the learning process three of the more established stables have submitted their methods of undertaking the initial assessment of a horses ability and preferences.
You will see they are all different as each player has developed their own ‘method’. There are no rights and wrongs in this game and it is down to each player to develop their skills and methods in ways which work for them.
Method 1
Method 2
Method 3
TRAINING YOUR FIRST HORSE – Method 1
Submitted by Nemesis Stud
2yr old bought from the sales ring. On the first day you have 8 farm trains and 2 public trains . Farm trains only you can view, Public trains the whole community can see.
First 4 trains
Go to Horse Page go to train horse.
2 headings Farm Workout (private) and Track Workout (public)
Farm train is default so keep at that, directly underneath you have 3 titles, Surface + Condition, Distance, Runs.
Keep Surface + Condition as ALL.
Distance, change to 1m (1600)
Runs, change to 4, then press train
You will now have 4 trains completed over 1m (1600) on fast,good,soft and firm. Now look at the times and notice which surface produced the best time.
5th train,
Change Surface & Condition to best surface
Change Distance to 1 ¾ (2850)
Run keep as 1 , now press train.
6th train
Do exactly the same as above but change distance to 5f (1000), then press train.
You now have 6 trains completed with 3 being on best surface and over sprint, classic and stayer distances.
Now to see which distance is better for your horse you have 2 choices
1 Horse page, directly under View Growth you have recent runs, upcoming races, training, event history and qualifier standings.
Click training, and you will see 6 trains, 4 over 1m (1600), 1 over 5f (1000) and 1 over 1 ¾ (2850), next to those hopefully you will see coloured stars, yellow 1 star means it’s train is within top 50% of site, 2 blue star trains means it’s within 25% of site and 3 green star trains is within 5% of site.
Hopefully you have 3 green star trains against one or more of the trains, whichever is better then this could be it’s best distance.
The other way to check your times is under STABLE, PREMIUM FEATURES then GLOBAL WORKOUT STATS. Here it will give you the options to view all farm workouts times over all distances for your age group.
Once you have found best going
And surface, you now need to workout which accessories will give the best results for your horse. You have 3 to choose from, Ear Muffs, Tongue Tie and Blinkers.
Go to the Horse page, on the right hand side you have Train, Race, Geld, Equipment, press Equipment. Here you have the option to add one piece of equipment at a time. Alternatively you can use MASTER TRAINER, this will either cost $2 or 2 BC’s. and this option allows you to ask the master trainer about one of the pieces of equipment.
I always ask the master trainer about Ear Muffs, however other players will ask about Tongue Tie, not often they ask about blinkers. If you decide to ask about Ear Muffs, the trainer will offer a positive or negative comment, if positive then add that piece of equipment to your horse.
Assuming you have chosen Ear Muffs, there is no need to train the horse with this piece of equipment added as the master trainer is always correct.
Now go and add the blinkers, now train the horse over the best surface and distance and 1 run. You should now see an improvement in the horse's time, if you do not then it might not like blinkers, if it has improved keep blinkers on and add Tongue Tie. Again train over best distance, surface and 1 run. If you see an improvement then keep the item attached, if not remove it.
That is a brief summary of equipment, however it is not as simple as testing once. If you have used the Master Trainer and one piece of equipment improves the horse then that will always stay attached, and that is eliminated from further checks. With the remaining two accessories you will need to check more than once to get a overall picture of how the horse performs with them attached
That concludes the first 8 trains. You now have 2 Public work options. These two workouts will give you a better understanding of the potential quality of your horse.
On the train page, change to Public Train, then change Surface + Condition to best going, change distance to best distance, leave Runs as 1 and press train.
Now to view how good the time is compared to other horses on the site, go to hover of NEWS, then look to the left and under LEADERBOARD you will see PUBLIC WORKOUTS, to view the train you have just ran, change the surface to either dirt or turf and press age 2 then press filter. You will now have a view of the top 100 public trains and hopefully you will see yours in the top half.
Now for the final public train, you can do it over the same distance but change the surface, so if your best surface was GOOD, then change to FAST, then press train and see how it compares, or you can can train again over good but choose a different distance within the category of Sprint, Classic, Stayer. So if you trained first public over 1m (1600) good, then do either 1 ⅛ (1800) or 1 ¼ (2000), press train and then see how they stack up with other public trains.
The 2 public trains will not remove any stamina, and this is only for the first 2 times. After that any public trains removes the stamina. If your horse is training over a distance which is too far the stamina will show less than 20%, the lower it is the further away from the ultimate trip your horse requires, if it is over 20% then your horse will be running too short a distance.
Now after these 10 trains, you can now race your horse without any penalty,
TRAINING YOUR FIRST HORSE – Method 2
Submitted by Anfield Road
There are 2 ways to obtain a new horse; sales ring and breeding.
They are quite different in how to approach training, in this instance I will concentrate on the Sales Ring.
When you purchase from the sales ring, you have no control on what horse you will get. No control over distance or ground preferred. These come from a large pool and are generated randomly.
So you have dipped in and bought 1 horse. It has no name, so give it one 😊, makes it more personal. Click on the change name tab.
With any new horse you get 8 trains in that day. If you leave it until the next day, you only get the standard 2 days, so work it on the day you buy it.
So what do we want to find out with these works?
Best Ground
Best Distance
Any Adds required
I always work at 2850 when testing, purely because any difference in times is increased over this longer distance and makes it easier to read. You won’t get weird results if it’s a sprinter and you work at 2850.
Best Ground
Another trick is look at the growth on each surface, if dirt has more growth than turf, it will be a dirt horse. Also, any sire that is marked as Irish, it will be a turf horse. So, you should be able to know the preferred surface. However, to check using trains:
1 2850 Fast
2 2850 Firm
Which time is fastest? This will be preferred surface. However, some like both and you may not get much difference, so I would keep working on all 4 surfaces.
So we now know the surface, lets say DIRT. So from now on we will work on dirty fast, keeping variables the same as much as possible.
3 2850 Fast, Ear Muffs added, is this time faster than work 1? If so the horse needs EM on, if slower, it doesn’t
4 2850 Fast, Tongue Tie added, is this time faster than work 1? If so the horse needs TT on, if slower, it doesn’t
5 2850 Fast, Blinkers added, is this time faster than work 1 If so the horse needs B on, if slower, it doesn’t
So, you will now have 3 adds tested against the naked fast work. Any adds that gave a faster work with them added, place them onto the horse. It may need none or all 3.
As a further point, if any times are close to the naked one, you could work again and test over the coming weeks and take an average. So if B were close to the naked time, work 4 times over 2 days at 2850 fast with no adds and then 4 works over 2 days with B on. Take an average and see if the add is needed.
An important fact to remember is Tongue Tie can improve the stamina on a horse. So if you work it at 2850 without TT and it ends with 4% stamina, try TT and you may see 10% plus stamina. HOWEVER, the time may now be slower. It’s a trade off sometimes!!
SO WE NOW HAVE SURFACE AND ADDS.
Now, you get 2 public works. Public are like going on a track for an exhausting workout, so will be faster than a gentle farm work. This also gives an important bit of information; the STAMINA left after a workout.
You can reset the stamina to 100% for the price of $1 or 1 Bonus Credit
If you think the horse is a stayer and the stamina comes back at 3% at 2850, this means the horse is exhausted and doesn’t get the 2850, so you need to check 2400. If that comes back at 18%, then this horse is a stayer that prefers only 2400.
If, however, it comes back at 9%, it probably means you miscalculated and it’s a classic horse. So try a public workout of 2000
Conversely if you work it public at 1000M and stamina returns at 33%, then this is too short, try 1600M
We are looking at returning from a public work at no less than 15% in general, maybe 10% for a stayer.
After a race the stamina return will be lower than a public, so if it ends a public workout at 15%, it may be around 8% for a race, which is fine.
TRAINING YOUR FIRST HORSE – Method 3
Submitted by Black Cat Racing
Getting started – assessing your yearling or new 2yo
Before beginning to assess your horse you need something to compare them with. On the main menu tab on News and then tab on public workouts. Select age of the horse you are looking for, and the season number. Leave the ground selection at any, you can drill down to the going later. I would suggest you print off a copy for each age group, you are looking at for ease of making comparisons with the times your horse returns.
- On day one when you purchase or breed your horse you get eight training runs it is important to use them wisely to identify the sort of horse you have. You should be able to identify favoured ground and goings, add ons and be able to compare your horse with the general horse population. If you fail to use the eight training days on Day 1 on subsequent days you only get only two trains which makes the whole process more time consuming.
- On the horses details page tab on the growth icon. This will show you the level of maturity your horse has on the two grounds and each of the two goings. Make a note of the greatest level of maturity on which surface and which of the two goings on that surface.
- Tab on the training tab and choose farm training, select 1600 on the best surface and ground and choose one training run and go. Repeat in turn with each add on leaving in place if improvement in time is recorded. That concludes your first four training runs and you will have established the add on preferences. If you are unsure you can make a note in the notes to revisit later to recheck
- Now tab on training again and run over 1200 and 2850 to conclude your Fifth and sixth training runs. Now tab on training on the left hand side of the page below upcoming races. Then tab on view records and you will see the results of the training runs you have undertaken.
- Now compare your horses times over 1200, 1600, and 2850 with the charts to establish whether sprint , classic or staying distances suit you horse best. It is important to note that whilst the time against the best is interesting it does not at this stage define your horses potential. All you are doing is establishing best distance grouping.
- Return to the next training run page and select all goings on the favoured ground and the favoured distance grouping . Run your final, two training runs for the first day.
- You are now in a position to run two trainings each day going forward. Once you have established your horses best going and best specific distance with its favoured distance grouping you are one in a position to run a Public Work. This must be done before you horses can run in their first races.
- On a two year old’s page if you tab on the growth icon you will see there is a overall maturity line in addition to the four lines on ground and going that you saw on a yearlings page. This is a very important indicator of your horses potential for maturity growth and likely improvement prospects. You do not see this on the yearling page only being evident when your horse tuns two therefore you cannot fully evaluate your horses ability potential until the current maturity level is known.
- Additionally there is no point in gelding a yearling in the search for improved times. Indeed personally I would not geld until a decision can be made regarding racing at Senior level. It also needs to be weighed against breeding potential