so sorry to have to post this but im really struggling. i have found alot of info for other types of races but i run a us flat schedule. with little success i might add. can any one give a newb some recomendations?
1) how best to approach starting a farm? are 2 yo the best time to start running them? what are some thing to focus on?
2) any suggestions on how what approach to take as far as scheduling races. i seem way outmatched regardless of what race i run?
3) what is the best approach to breeding?
any help i would be thankful for. love the game just really lost. lol seems like it has a great community too.

Hi Nelson.

I'll give ideas on how I have done it so far but there are lots of very experienced players in here who have a better understanding of the game who will hopefully help you.

1) with the farm/stables at first just try and get by with the basics - the real must haves like horse floats - and have all your wages for staff set low as well as staff numbers. My rule of thumb -
I guess everyone has their own opinion - for 2yo horses - if their best is over 2000 metres then I leave them in the paddock until they are 3yo's as there are no appropriate races for them as 2yo's
if you get to buy game bred 2yo's at the end of the season - maybe stick with sprinters as there are plenty of races and you may get lucky in a rich 2yo race.

2) not 100% sure what you mean with scheduling races but I try and put my horses in appropriate races that suit it's ability. you need at the very least horses or a horse that can win regular listed races
or have horses that are on the improve and going thru the grades. sell any horses that are struggling to make listed. you need all the money you can get!

3) once you have got enough cash together to buy what you need to breed - go for it. once again everyone will have their own ideas about this. for me - if I have a horse that is winning group 1 races
then I usually keep racing it to collect the prize money and also for the buzz of it racing lol
for you it could be worth just breeding you average horses - give the 2yo's a few starts - keep what seems to have potential and sell the rest. from my point of view it's all about the cash at this stage
of your game so you can breed and buy.

another tip as well - once you have a few million left over from the end of year sales - keep an eye on the Thursday auctions - each season there will be one or two really good 3>5 yo's up for sale - check out their form and if any have won some really good races - buy them - win with them and breed with them - great way to get quality into your breeding program.
once you get a feel for it all - betting is another way that can fatten up your bank as well.

hope this is a start for you and good luck.

thnaks so much for the response. i plan to implement these and give it a go. it was very nice of you to share your ideas

1.) If a horse is in your barn, it can be run ... unless its injured obviously. Just might to keep an eye on it in the training screen to see if you head lad says you're close to over racing them. In that case, you can either sell, retire to the breeding barn, put out to grass for the rest of the season, or retire them from the game. As for anything to focus on, there isn't anything, really. I suppose you can shoot for the breeding barn as soon as possible so you have foals quicker to sell for more money. If you want to focus on specific distances, that's your decision. I try for the Triple Crown personally although the Belmont Stakes in the schedule keeps throwing me off (New York Stakes ...). Need to alter my schedule to fix that.

* If you have money issues, there's a couple methods to get money:
-*) Get a loan in the finance screen
-*) Sell all of your horses from the get go and buy new ones over time
-*) Bet

2.) I don't bother too much with the early game when first starting out. I keep my starting horses in the racing shed until I have enough money to cover all upgrades, then I start retiring the oldest ones to the breeding barn. Once I start getting foals, then I start to focus more on what races I enter. It might take 10 years or more before I can get a foal that can run in a graded stakes and win. In my game right now, my first crop of foals netted me a group 1 winner as a 2yo but flopped hard as a 3yo. What you can do is start off in lower races like maidens, handicaps, and allowances. Throw in the odd unnamed group race that pops up from time to time. If they hit a decent rating (I usually shoot for 110+), I try them in a group race with fewer than 10 horses. If they come in the money, I keep entering them into group races. Otherwise, they go back to handicaps and allowances.

3.) In regards to breeding, I've always bred my horses with the best in the breeding barn. If there's a computer owned stallion that has 17 group 1 wins, I'm not passing that up. I'll actually buy a few extra mares from the auction even if they can't win seller races to breed with him. If there's a computer owned mare who's really good, I just match her with whatever stallion's in my shed and hope I don't get something terrible. My 2yo group 1 winner that flopped was by a 16 group 1 winning stallion and out of a seller quality mare. The foal might be bad at 3yo, but was still an improvement so the foal's going to the shed to be bred.

Only thing you can really do with breeding is start out low and work up. You aren't going to have a 30 group 1 winner right off the bat. It might take a while. Each generation tends to improve upon the last one so as long as you keep up breeding, you'll see improvement. As you start to gain better quality horses, retire the lesser quality ones. Before long, you'll have a breeding barn of quality horses to free up room ... unless you want to continue to sell foals from those horses. After a couple years, I tend to take my best currently racing horses, retire them to the game pool, start a new game, and import them there to get a fresh start with new blood. My original game doesn't go anywhere although I do slowly phase it out over time. All of the good horses continue to go into the game pool and go into my new game until my breeding barn stock is dead. Then the game's deleted in favor of the new one. Rare if I run more than 50 seasons in a game, but that's more personal preference. Some go 100+.

Also thinking about it, I wouldn't discount a horse in the breeding barn due to age. A good many on here tend to retire horses from the breeding barn around age 10 or so due to their foals declining in quality. Personally, my best mare in SO5 was out of a 17-year-old mare and a 19-year-old stallion. She won over 60 group 1 races and was never beaten. So you never know when something spectacular might pop up out of an older horse. If you don't have the room in the breeding barn, then retire older horses. I rarely run more than 50 in the barn so I never have that issue.

1) Run them when they are fit, watch their improvement on the bar, look at before the race and after.
if they dont have good potential and the bar doesnt go up, ditch them.

If they have a potential up 80% it might be worth keeping them as they get better over a few seasons.

2) Ability bar, half bar is a handicapper, 3/4 is a listed/group horse, all about placement.

3) Breed the potential bar, i have horses that dont perform on the track but make great stallions/mares. the game horses are ok to breed with but only you dont have any decent horses of your own. The game engine cheats with in game horses, it makes them fit and ready no matter how many runs they have had, so on breeding it can be deceptive, if you have horses near and above the 90% bar, then stick to your own, but mix with game breds every now and then.

But as a newbie you should retire females with half a full bar and breed them with group 1 sires in the breeding barn.

when breeding dont go silly on distances, ie 5f with 1m6f horse.

Breed sprinters with milers
Breed milers with middle distance horses
Breed middle distance horses with stayers.

good luck

just one other point that I think will help you. don't geld your colts or stallions!
it's about the only prompted instruction to ignore.
at this stage of your game you need the best horses you have to breed with.