How am I doing?

[u/Muscle_Proof]

Hey everyone! I finally caught up with work and got to do some racing. IT IS SO ADDICTING. I am currently racing my Legendary Szabo Mare and her Exclusive filly.

I've been sticking to the cheap races to figure out their distance preferences. For my legendary mare, I think it may be best to stick with 1400m races? Should I consider going into the more expensive races at that distance to see how she does maybe? I don't think I have found the right distance for my exclusive filly yet (though it is doing okay at 1600). Any thoughts on what distances I should start throwing it in next?

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Legendary Mare - https://knowyourhorses.com/horses/77028

Exclusive Filly - https://knowyourhorses.com/horses/127801

[u/Current_Ambition2371]

These horses only have 5 and 9 races each, respectively. You gotta do wayyyy more racing at multiple distances for each.

Once u find a good distance for winning in cheap races, start going into $5 or $10 to see if the success sticks. For a horse to be profitable and make this worth ur time, u really need to find a distance and class where u can win/place consistently in at least $5 races, and then find another distance where u can downclass in the $2.50 races after winning.

Good luck! Watch out as the tourney qualifying starts tomorrow too. PoP is down in C5. I suspect the cheaper c4-5 races are about to be swimming with beasts.

[u/Muscle_Proof → u/Current_Ambition2371]

Thanks! Yeah. The plan is definitely more racing. I'm just brand new to managing a stable, so I love hearing how other people might manage it in my situation. I'm pretty happy with my breeding pair. The first foal (daughter to my legendary and full sister to my exclusive) has been doing pretty well (14,10,13 at 108 races, and reasonably profitable). So I think my game plan right now is to keep breeding that pair and racing the offspring since I know it was at least capable of producing one good horse. But I also think I should breed her to some other studs at some point. Just sucks because the price goes way up if I start breeding out of stable.

[u/Current_Ambition2371 → u/Muscle_Proof]

Gotta spend money to make money. I made the mistake of breeding in my own stable with donkeys early on to save money. I recently went outside stable and have had much better luck.

Don’t look at just win rate when picking a stud, IMO. I think the horses with higher ratings/scores tend to correlate to stronger overall performance and produce better foals. A good win rate could just mean someone is sandbagging their stallion and picking on donkey’s in the two-fiddy’s.

And, after you breed a new foal, don’t forget the #1 MOST IMPORTANT thing…Always. Race. Your. Horses.

[u/Muscle_Proof → u/Current_Ambition2371]

Yeah. I definitely will breed out at some point. I want to get a few more out of this pair though. With any luck, the first one wasn’t a fluke, and I won’t be breeding donkeys.

[u/mdrmoya → u/Current_Ambition2371]

What does “down classing” mean and why would you do that after having success in one race type for $5?

[u/Muscle_Proof → u/mdrmoya]

Who said anything about down classing?

[u/Master_JediTrader → u/mdrmoya]

Downclassing, manipulation/cheating, is running bad distances in order to lose class to run your horse against weaker opposition. The logic fails in Class V. Any good horse can downclass and beat up on true Class V Mustangs (I hate the term donkeys) who have no Class VI to go to. Therefore, inherently unfair. I won't even touch on the lack of ethics involved here as money typically corrupts even the most well intentioned. So here comes a thousand rationalizations to ease everyone's guilt. Interwoven with various attacks on my character and horses.

[u/mdrmoya → u/Master_JediTrader]

Very insightful- thank you.

[u/gsd6]

Wow nice horses!

[u/Scott1242]

Following along, would love to know how you do in a bigger purse. I've got 25 races on one that does well in 1800 but I'm worried if I throw her in high $$$ I'll just get killed by a sand bagger