Hi All

First of all great to meet you all & what a great game...

I'm new to SO4 and have sort of got the hang of it but the one area I seem to be struggling with is the racing...

Say I have a 83 rated horse, a 68 rated horse and a 79 rated horse... The bit i'm struggling with is the sort of races and order to enter them to progress them and have a chance of winning... No matter what races I seem to enter in my horses lose...

I also don't understand the conditioning races, so if someone could explain how those work that would be very helpful...

With claiming races i'm assuming it's so that if you have a 83 rated horse and he/she is going to be carrying top wait you can claim some weight to give it a fighting chance? if this is the case and you claim weight and the horse wins what's the outcome? is it reduced winnings, higher handicap rating added for future?... i've not got a clue to be honest and am guessing

I've been looking through the posts and can't really find an answer, races answers seem to be mainly about the order of races from sellers to group 1's etc. and if it's there and i've missed it then please accept my apologies for duplicating a question...

Well thanks in advance for any help you can give and an other pointers you might feel free to add would be greatly appreciated and accepted..

Oh and Supercat.... keep up the flirting haha

Baz

With claiming races your horse is entered by default carrying 7-10. There's a button in the top right of the declaration screen where you can add weight to your horse. The more weight your horse carries, the higher the sale reserve price after the race.

Hi, there are lots of different types of races for different types of horse. The general consensus though is that winning becomes much, much easier when you breed your own, so if you can get breeding ASAP and hopefully you'll start to do better.

There are about 7 classes of races:
Sellers: these are for the worst horses or those who you want to sell. The one that wins will be auctioned al the end of the day. They can also be used to get a run into a 3yo maiden who needs a run, but make sure to put a really high reserve or buy them back so you don't lose them.
Claimers: again for bad horses but they're run a bit like a handicap where better horses carry more weight. But if you don't put a claim weight on your horse then it'll carry 7st 10lbs irrespective of it's rating.
Handicaps: from 0-60 up to 0-110 obviously the higher the upper handicap the better the race, but if your horse is rated one of the lowest it'll carry less weight so you have to decide whether to race against lesser horses with more weight or better horses with less weight.
Conditions races: these have conditions on them, like 'not won c1 (class 1, e.g. group or listed race) or higher'. Or 'not to have run more than once'.
Then there are the higher races like listed, and group races which are fairly self explanatory.
Hope this helps a bit. It's usually best to sell the horses you're given initially and buy the breeding and training facilities and get breeding your own starting with fairly cheap horses and moving up.

Guide to Horse Racing

Everything you need to know should be on these pages.

SO 4 is slighlty out dated as regarding its Rating system, but you'll get the jist....

Download this Guide to Handicapping to help you understand it more.