I have been trying to improve the potential and extra speed of the horse below. In the past I have relied on improving my horse lines by breeding with horses in the breeding barn and not going to auctions. I am not a very patient person and get bored going to every Thursday auction.

I seem to have hit the wall with using the breeding barn, so other trainers have been posting screenshots of nice horses from autions and I thought I would give auctions a try.

I have started 2 new games, one in Australia and one in USA and have visited every auction in both games for the past 8 seasons each, but have never seen even a half decent horse come up for auction.

I am wondering if I have been too narrow in my choice of horses to buy. I have bought every group winner ( mostly G2 and G3, rarely a G1 winner ), and any other horse that has won 3 or more races.

What criteria do you use when buying horses at auction?

Maybe I need more patience and need to run the 2 games for longer.

Am I being too ambitious in trying to improve the bars of this horse?

Need the patients of a saint mate

I just look for something with 1 of the bars better than what i have

How do you get to see the bars of the horses in the auctions Paul ? (sorry for butting in Jim)

Do you buy every horse you can or just group winners?

Martin
you dont its pure pot luck - you only see stats once purchased it can be very tedious

Jim
I buy group winners and any 2yo with high reserve

I'd say buy every 5 or 6 furlong horse, that's what u need.

I hit the same wall Jim, 30 seasons in on a game played only to find game horses and thus far I have found squat. Well one 80% cb horse but the rest of his stats are so bad he is just diluting my lines. I am sticking with what I have, click click click, buy buy buy, sell sell sell is doing my head in.

On the plus side I have re aquired my love for the total war series with the latest incarnation 'warhammer', welcome break from the tedium, and the other half seems to hate it less

I have given up on going to auctions. Played about 40 seasons and never found a horse I thought could help my breeding lines.

I decided to go back to the breeding barn as that is always what I have used before to improve my breeding lines. I started a new game and kept uploading 6 mares each season until I had abot 36 mares in the barn. I have found in the past that I get the best results using breeding barn stallions with my mares. It took about 35 seasons, but eventually I bred a stallion that I thought could improve my breeding lines.

It took about 6 seasons of cross breeding the stallion with my mares to produce this stallion. He is not quite 100% potential as a 3yo, but he's the closest I have come to it when combined with extra speed and cruising burst. The only problems are that he likes softer going and I think good/firmer going horses are better for the flat and so far there are no equivolent mares to breed him with.

While I was cross breeding to find this stallion, I also managed to breed a nice 5f stallion who likes firmer ground. Both horses are only about a length better in the CK than my existing horses, but I am now going stop breeding sprinters and milers for bars and try to breed these two stallions with the best CK mares to try and improve performance.

Jim I only trial my flat horses on good ground and my soft ground horse Shady Heights has had a fantastic season ( probably my best season by a 1m2f horse), he won the good ground trials and so he was good enough on good ground but I was worried about him being a soft ground but I was wrong and not only that but he didn't have 100 potential bar.

I would show u a pic but tinypics not working. I've sent u a pic of Shady Heights in u email.

Thanks for the pic John.

I usually trial my flat horses on good and good to firm ground, but like you, I have found some softer going horses do well in the better ground.

If the softer going horses are the best in the ck, I will use them for breeding. I do have a couple of decent 8f mares who like good ground, so I will try to breed with them first and see what happens.

I must admit, I am finding it takes me many seasons of breeding, sometimes going round in circles, to produce what I hope will be more competeive flat horses for next seasons league.

I have neglected my jumpers since the start of this seasons league. I hope they don't suffer for the neglect. I will give the flat my full attention until the end of February and whatever state the flat team is in, I will go back to my jumpers, as I like them best, for the last 7 weeks or so before the new league season starts.

I found tinpics not working as well, so used this image hosting site.

https://picoolio.net/

Hope you don't mind, but I uploaded the pic for others to see. Maybe it will give other trainers some inspiration.

I'll have to try that site. U will go mad breeding flat horses, that's why I'm running down my flat team so I'm refreshed for the next game. Breeding jumpers is more fun because u never know what u going to get.

Keep us informed how u get on.