Yeah, on top of only watching the important one, I hit tab immediately so the race goes quicker, but I also have frame rate problems (26 fps) at regular speed, goes up to about 32 fps in fast-forward... everything looks fine, but I get warning messages and my computer starts to whir the more I watch... I'd rather not risk overheating the damn thing. It's a laptop, I quicksave by pressing 'S' on the home screen after every day/time skip.

In terms of play I do cheat a bit. Besides money, I will force close the game without saving in certain events. First off, I will begin by saying when I do NOT do it, I don't force close it just because I don't like the result of a race. I have 2 specific criteria for reverting to an old save, that I believe is fair.

1.) My horse gets a severe injury whether in race or training. I only race my horses at 2,3, and 4 so for one of my horses to suffer an injury that knocks them out for almost 2 months, greatly affects my ability to quantify them in a spreadsheet. Since I limit them to only 3 years on the track unlike IRL where a good horse may race much longer, I can't face any setbacks that'll destroy their 'score' (I have a scoring system based on their G1/G2/G3 wins).

2.) The jockey messes up. I'm talking he ran my undefeated 4-year-old front runner, who he's been riding every race since his/her debut, as a closer. I feel this is acceptable because I consider it a game glitch, a scenario in which the game does not match what would ever happen IRL. I mean think about it, imagine if, for absolutely no reason, after winning the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, Victor Espinoza had decided that in the Belmont he should ride American Pharoah as a closer. I think at that point, he would have been accused of deliberately sabotaging the horse for trying something like that. So when it seems my jockeys are trying to engage in some sabotage, I force close the game, I will not have my horse's legacy ruined by something I consider a glitch.

The jockey "glitch" one really just drives me absolutely crazy, I can't stand having a mar on an otherwise perfect record due to poor handling of the horse. I only say it because I did several challenges back in the day, and don't want it to seem like "wah my horse got second, I must restart the game 50,000 times if necessary until I win". I mean I could have given the jockey instructions, but I usually accidentally skip past the race when trying to skip to mine, wish we could just pick a run-style on the horse screen similar to the one used when exporting so that we only had to enter it once.

Lol, thinking about someone playing Battlefield at work, "Yeah, I'm gonna have to ask you to wait, I'm in the middle of a match and can't pause the game. Can you just shut up and leave me alone please"

Oh I hate that one, just "ok my horse is 3 wide in the home stretch and coming up fast he's gonna win this easily..." jockey moves horse over for no reason "no, now your stuck in third, why the hell did you move in behind horses on a straight, you imbecile"... sometimes I just want to scream .

I never thought to suggest it, I just assumed it was something Mark must have been asked to do like 789475793 times (and had some reason for not doing). It just seems logical to have it on the horse screen somewhere, just like a little menu with the same options seen on race day (outside of "take the reins")

I do watch my horses race, especially if they are struggling in a particular race. I can see what went wrong whether it was the Jockey swerving in and out and or riding the horse wrong or seeing where my horse weakened at/gave up. I do get annoyed when I see my jockey ride a horse wrong. Like people have said riding a closer as a frontrunner or a frontrunner as a closer and then I get the comments of "tired, could never get into the race" "pace wasn't there"... some horses I have to manually tell my jockey what pace (even pace, race handy, slight hold-up) for them to place in the top 3. If I had let the Jockey run those particular horses the way he likes, they usually place last or second last with bad comments.

I've run many simulations and re-started a race to see if I got different results with the same horse/jockey riding at different presets and it makes a difference. Sometimes I feel like if your Jockey rides your horse wrong, you will lose the race even if it's your top horse. Pace type and making sure the Jockey is riding your horse the way they prefer to run is key.

I've heard even then that sometimes the jockey will ignore your instructions and do whatever he/she wants.