G'day everyone.

I was wondering how people pick what 2YOS to buy at auction, if you buy at auction.

I used to pick the most expensive, never worked expect maybe one time. That horse ended up winning the Australian Triple Crown and Melbourne Cup as a 3YO. That is my only success story. He is untested as a stud, not expect much though..knowing my luck.

I tried only buying horses 'by a Group 1 winner' most horses I pick are crap who can't win a C7 handicap.

I am at loss, I'm still working on breeding my own youngsters, but I need good breeding stock to do that and nothing I buy works out, I'm pretty much buying hope that the horse is least halfway decent.

Is it all just a wild guess? In real life least you'll know the bloodline, in S06 you don't know jack about the horse until you buy it.

I have NO luck buying 2yos, or really any horses lmao!

You probably already know about this, but the best way to find decent breeding stock is usually to start a new game on easy mode, check your starting horses for ones with a decent potential bar and if you don't find any, quit and start again over and over until you do find something. When you find a horse you think might be good, play through to the end of the season and retire that horse to your game pool.

Once you've done this enough to have a few decent ones, import them into your main game or a new game, and retire them to breed and voila! You have some halfway decent breeding stock that you can build on from there.

This is the fastest way to get your breeding underway that I know of. Other people may have other/better strategies?

Good luck!

To add to what Sabella said, start a new game on easy which gets you more horses to look at. Might take a few tries to get some decent horses.

Personally, I don't bother much buying 2yos at the auction. I used to, but I have better luck just buying horses at the auctions throughout the year. The 2yos from the auctions at the beginning of every season are a big roulette wheel. Technically true in real life, too. Once you get breeding, the auction 2yos aren't worth the money at all. Just keep an eye out for horses throughout the year at the weekly auctions and buy those if you need horses to breed or race. At least they're more likely to be race tested so you have a better idea of what you're buying.

If I am betting heavily to get cash reserves I will usually grab a few 2yo's at auctions. Normally look at those not run at their proper distance but still won or perhaps got top three. Also look at competitive runners in feature races, group winners, and just risk it all on a few unraced 2yo's at around $2m each.

For breeding purposes I grab most cheap unraced 2yo fillies just in case I can grab a bargain. In my main save I lose about $10m a season buying horses that don't work out, but I usually end up with 3-4 real good ones each season for about $1.5m each, so it's expensive but I can afford that loss to get my stable in a good position.

I started in easy.
While you have a small bank - then picking 2yos at the end/start of year auction is just luck UNTIL you can build up a big bank.
From my experience, once you can buy the most expensive horses at the auction then your chances of finding a good horse improve drastically.
Another way to buy a cracker is to once again get a bank up and keep an eye on the results of the group races for 2 and 3yo.
Occasionally a group 1 winning 3yo will pop up at the Thursday auctions - BUY IT!

If you have the patience and are sensible with placing your horses in the right races - it will unfold slowly and you will get there!

Another way of building your bank is punting on your good horses. In easy - the tote is very generous - don't bet on your 2yo's. Wait til 3 or even better, 4yo.
4yo form is consistent - all you need is a horse/s that can win Listed races and you can easily add one or two million a year to your bank.
To get good odds - race a listed winning horse in Group races (G2 or 3 are best) for a few runs - then drop it back to Listed or Handicap and with luck you might get 20/1 then
place maximum win and place bets (always maximum - as you can win up to 100k each Listed race win).

pjrhodes has a good system for buying and selling horses for a profit. If you scroll through the General Discussion listings you can find his post on how to do it.

About 5 to 10 years into a game after I have sold a bunch of lousy homebreds for grossly inflated prices and have a large bankroll I pick up a few 2yo's at the beginning of the year auction in hopes one may be talented. They usually aren't. I do get some good ones here and there. My rules for selecting are as follows....

1. They must be in the top priced group of horses - usually between 2 million and 1.5 million. The rest I ignore.

2. I start with the horses who are by ungraded winners. My thinking is if they are good enough to command such a price and they are by an ungraded sire/mare they must be good - right? Then I do the grade 3's, 2's and then the grade 1's.

3. Here is where I get weird. When I go to bid on the horse it must have a asking price of 1.7 million or higher. If it doesn't I leave it alone.

4. Now I get even weirder. The first bid must be around 2 million. If not I leave.

5. Now I am in danger of being committed. The horse must have multiple trainers bidding on it. If not I leave. After they are done bidding I drop in and take their prize as mine.

Whether this is successful I really can't say. I've had too many horses over the years to remember and my homebreds pay the bills. I once bought every horse at the beginning of the year auction for two straight years and wrote down their purchase price and examined them and their wasn't one super high potential horse.

Thanks everyone.

Actually got lucky this Season at the sales, 4 of the 8 I picked up are Group winners. Two are flops and the other two unraced at the moment since their long distance, but they are my next Melbourne Cup hopefuls.

I did breed the stud mentioned in the original post, his first foals hit the track next year hope I to get a league worthy stable going. Made a habit of going to every Thursday sales, sometimes you get lucky and theres a multiple G1 winner up for sale, got a couple G1 winning broodmares for next season. Fingers crossed.

I can relate to a couple of these lol
I always wonder "what's the catch" when there is only one other bidder and they only bid a couple of times - it's like "what do they know that I don't" lol

I too, only buy the top 3 or 4 expensive horses - I don't have a price minimum though.

I'm suss about expensive ungraded horses and I only try to buy horses from Grade 1 breeding.

Meeka - I too, being an Aussie, race on the Australian circuit. Good move keeping an eye out on ever Thursday sale - for example, my last virtual year I was able to buy a 2yo who had just won the Blue Diamond! - I had to fork out 4mil but it's almost won everything the 12 months since - cleaning up most of the big 3yo races.

The yearly auction is just luck, like in the real world - plenty of very expensive horses have flopped on the track and so too, in this game.
But when you can start to afford to buy the most expensive horses at the yearly auction - you will pick up some classy performers.
I've had a couple who have won in Asia, USA, Dubai and the UK - so hang in there

I started off thinking the same way too, but I've bred from ungraded stock and also bought those from the auctions and they ended up as group 1 winners themselves by age 4. I really don't think that matters too much right now, however I am still doing quite a few test saves to try and figure out an approach to breeding that works for me.

Thanks for that Chris - be interesting to hear your findings/results from your test saves.