Is anyone else having difficulties trialing & improving their horses? Despite using the same formula which was successful for me in SO4 my times arent getting any better and its begining to get a little frustrating!

I am finding the following things:

1 - The times arent that consistent, especially compared to SO4
2 - The horses stamina bar doesnt reflect its best distance (ie I have several 7/8f horses that are closer to standard times over 5/6f than any other distance.
3 - The 'detailed stats' page seems to be fairly uninfluential in the CK. Generally speaking, my best CK horses havent had the highest potential ability rating.
4 - The horses that are best at 2 seem to also be the best at 3.

It may well just be that I have hit a plateau and will pick up again shortly but I am barely getting anything within 0.5 secs of my best times, especially with my sprinters which is a little bit disconcerting.

Id get some new blood into your lines, start other games and find a VERY good stallion then import your mares. I have bred some freaks this way who never get beat in the ck and clock very consistent and fast times.

Cheers for the response, there obviously isnt a problem and its just my bloodstock getting 'stale'!

I will try and switch it up a bit and hopefully then the times will start to drop.

What sort of times are people hitting?? I've rarely trialled at the moment but managed to get a 200 strong exportfolio!! Might run some trials when I get home and see how people are shaping up just to get a bit of interest flowing!

I'd be interested as well, don't want to put mine up first if they are embarrassingly slow

1m4f 233.90 my best on good ascot 3yo+

Haha, that's what I'm afraid of! Mine are doing exactly the same as previous SO's my first crop from the best gamebred I find early doors seem to be unbeatable! Been focusing on 10-12f horses ad getting away from stayers, also found some decent sprinters which I normally really struggle with! Not looking forward to sifting through 200 exports, especially with the addition of horses being more versatile could make trialling a whole lot harder, especially with some of my top 10f horses doing well over 12 too, might make the league rules need to be shuffled with the versatility add on etc, say I have a top 10f horse which I might want to run at 12f because it is just as good there (very rare but I do have one or two horses with this capability) and these horses might not be good enough for listed+ level. I doubt there will be many cases of this but worth looking at.

wow the league sounds really fun..i always wanted to play in the league even while playing so4..its just i would be putting crap gamebred horses in because i play the game really really slow watching every race.it would not be fun for me if i speed things up...i wish i could play in the league it seems the best but im am still on season one in so5 and only got 3 selling race horses...sucks..

Maybe you cuold start two games? One use for your personal enjoyment and go slow and the other maybe when you haven't got enough time on your hands you can use for finding league horses, even if you find one good one you can enter it! You don't have to have a stable full of stars! There will always be a race for you to win even if it is just a 0-60, I had some of my superstars not get a place while my donkey's have been cleaning up in 0-60's and all of it's fun! The way I play to get a quick headstart and rapidly produce homebred's is to start on easy, sell all the horses at the beginning and look round the forums for time guidelines on what sort of times good horses will be running (a rough guide is around 57-58 secs for 5f, 1:10ish for 6f, 1m37ish for 1m, 2m5s for 1m2f and around 1m28-32 for 1m4f, any times close to them in game AND Construction Kit (important) will get you a win in handicap company in the league). Find horses running in sellers and claimers that are running near to these times and you should be able to get a few from the money you make selling the horses at the beginning. Eventually you'll get a horse that can win a group 1's (Aim for Dubai races to build money quick) and then once you have the barn and start breeding from it using the CPU's horse in the barn or your own good mare's (Always use G1 Mares). To make the game go quick I stick to a plan of only watching whole races if it's a classic, watching the end if it's a G1 race, G1 Trial or Maiden and skip the rest, I can normally get through a season in 2/3 hours playing this way. It's your own game so play it your way but these might be a few tips to help you speed up or find those elusive game horses.

cheers nick...thanks for the info will start tomorrow and start a second game for league horses..writing down the times u gave now..just hoping just to win one race even if its a class 6 handicap it would make my world because i would be playing against other peoples horses not the cpu..when will the league start?..does it matter what schedule use for league horses?..thanks very much..

Season probably won't start for a while, so you have plenty of time yet. Rich is the president so I'm sure he will set a rough date sometime in the near future, but I think it will be a while to give everyone a chance to get up to grips with SO5, be a good time to start as everyone will be back to square 1 with a new game. Obviously previous experience will help a few but there has been a lot of interest in the league so there will be plenty of new trainers too, Some new trainers last year ended up taking a few group 1's so the sky's the limit! It's fun either way! I started off with having 100 runners and not one winner and now I'm having nearly 100 horses place a season so you will always get better the more you play!! Erm, with regards to schedule It doesnt matter, for the past 4 seasons I had been using a Flat/Jumps and using my flat castoffs as jumpers! This year I have stuck to the flat and yet to start a jumps game but I'd recommend targeting what you are going to do, if you want just flat or nh then stick to one or the other but if you want both stables then play a mixed game! When you get more into it you can start more games and transfer horses across to find better bloodlines, I personally don't do this as I hate the hassle but a lot of the top trainers use this method!

ok so i can also use pj worldwide schedule to right..i play only flat i love the us racing scene..there will probably not be a usa league im guessing..but i got interested in the uk flat scene about a couple of months ago because of frankel wow that horse is amazing and i also love camelot..thanks for all the info u gave it will help me 2morow when i start on league horse..do u export all the horses u breed in the ck even if they suck in the game or do u just export the ones that are only good in the game

Yeah, any schedule is fine. There used to be a US league but there wasn't enough interest so it got dropped I'm afraid! Personally I only export horses that have won at least 2 or 3 group 1's or show potential. A lot export all horses but I find the game superstars are normally 75% of the time the better horses in CK too. A lot of people export all but it is serious hassle sifting through all of them!!

thank nick cheers

Had a quick go at trialing the horses I thought were best suited for each distance and quite surprised at how bad my times are!!
Each race was run at Ascot on Good ground with 30 Runners and Weight For Age -

5f - Raging Bull 59.44/59.45/59.42
6f - Tyrannus 1.12.21/1.12.22/1.12.29
1m - Twinkle Toeas 1:40.72/1:40.69/1:40.70
1m2f - Honorine 2:9.68/2:9.85 Sea Of Stars 2:9.75
1m4f - Sea Of Stars 2:34.84/2:34.77/2:34.83

These were the best times from 5 races at each time, My findings conclude my horses are extremely consistent with the same horses winning more or less every time, even so it is normally between the same 2 horses EVERY time which is very unlike SO4, Pretty shocked at how bad those times are was expecting and really needing to be competitive at 2 seconds quicker in each category. Maybe knock a few split seconds off for the amount of runners but still average. Don't be disheartened if you are getting worse than these, handicaps are a whole different story. Anyone else care to share so I can see how bad these are! Played 40odd seasons and still well behind PJR at 12f, need to incorporate some new blood and start a few new games I think! For example Honorine was the first GAMEBRED that I bought in that game in SEASON 1!!! It's ridiculous the amount of 10+ time G1 winners I've had at that level which still can't beat it but then again also shows how good Sea Of Stars is being ultra competitive from 1m2f to 1m4f, will be interested to see if anyone else has posted any times by the time I'm back from football!

EDIT - Just got home and been running trials with my best horses and only having 10 runners and it's shaving around .3/.4 off the times.
Sea Of Stars and Honorine are now posting around 2:34.30/2:34.40 for 1m4f so it's not as bad as I thought! Same with 10 furlongs, Honorine is posting around 2:9.20/2:9.30. So if you are running trials with loads of runners, don't be disheartened by the time as It's probably .4 seconds+ slower than it should be! Try finding your 10 best for each distance and then running proper trials! But remember most league races will have 15+ Runners!