I’m glad i read this post and discover that I am not the only one struggling with training. I thought it was something we had to do or the programme would do as it liked.
As a newbie I am finding things very difficult as both my horses have F for condition and A for fitness. The 2-y-o has just been entered for her first race and at entry had condition C and fitness A. i did a 1/2 mile breeze with her and her condition has dropped to F and despite only giving walking work it has remained so. All she was given to do today was a 1/2 mile walk at 50% and the jockeys comment was “your horse ran out of steam”!!! This seems a drastic drop for 1 workout and on that basis she should die after her first race, if she ever gets into one.
I assume if I can’t get her condition better than F I will have to remove her from her race on Wednesday.
Effectively at the moment I have no horses and looking at the prices paid in the recent auctions, no chance at all of buying an older horse to get me out of the trap of always being too late to enter the oversubscribed maidens and starter races.
I am feeling very sad about it all as I expect the racing season is nearly over and I have nothing to join in with till next year
I have tried to look for older horses that I can approach owners with a request to sell, have found one or two with a couple of placings/shows but no wins that I thought might not be too wonderful for the owners to give up,and mailed the owners but without luck - perhaps they are insulted by my low offers?
I saw somewhere that there are sometimes newbie sales where hopefully the prices are in reach for us, are there any plans for one?
Or how about a few newbie races to give us the chance to see how our horses run?
I am going to give both horses a week of doing nothing and see if they get any energy back, but if someone can suggest something else I’m all ears!
Definitely do nothing! My take on training is leave them alone when they have A fitness. Time is the only tonic for energy. I am certainly no expert…we are all figuring out how to use this tool. Personally, I give them workouts if they are sliding on fitness just to keep them on the upswing, or when they are peaking too soon between races so as not to over run them.
As for your racing dilemma, we have all faced the same thing. If it gives you any comfort, I began in November so Jo-San Farm is still only nine months old. During that time it has grown to 51 horses. I still can’t compete with the more “monied” stables when it comes to auctions. If they so choose they can blow me out of the water in a bidding war. That said, when the auction has more horses like the Annual Foal Auction in December will most likely have, then there will be plenty of $500 type horses. I haven’t been through the Select Auction in September, but with 103 horses consigned I’m guessing there may be some deals to be had. We shall see.
I wouldn’t throw in the towel. You’ve hit a bump in the road, but the game is really awesome. It just takes time, patience and persistence. Once it starts rolling it’s kind of like a snowball effect.
When I get a chance, I’ll try and figure out what’s up with training. Galloping 1 mile shouldn’t wipe out any horse, unless it’s injured, or already has no energy.
Not sure when I’ll have time to fiddle with it, though, work’s been rather crazy lately.
Don’t count on that… Select Auction attracts the “cream of the crop”, and they generally have reserve prices to match. But there are some deals in there (as far as reserve pricing goes), just doesn’t mean they’re actually “cheap”.
Another thing for you to look at when if you ever have time Shanthi, though i’m sure you probably already know about it.
The times for breezing are still wacky, I can get a three second breeze for two furlongs and then get a minute plus breeze for one furlong, just thought I’d throw that in there.
Don’t give up wolfhound! I’ve been in the game about a year and a half now, I only have about 24 horses, granted they are 24 NICE horses, most of them anyway, they all have the potential just not the ambition.
I FINALLY got my first stakes win in January of this year I believe with Storming River whom I purchased from Holly of CDS for a mere $50k, we’ll just say he’s earned a LOT more than that for me since then. Then there’s Sleipnir who I purchased at the yearling sale last year for the maximum $100k, I took a chance on an insanely well bred yearling who might or might not do well, as a two-year-old he’s been outstanding, super consistent and just won a million dollar stakes for me which was a big lucky break for me.
It’s just those random moments of luck that you have to wait for, they will come.
Jodi, this has been mentioned many times before, and is a known bug. See my above post about the availability (or lack thereof) of time to tweak training.
I have something I thought was odd. I don’t know if it’s a bug, or if it’s known, or even if it’s nothing, but, whatever.
I trained my horse today at canter 1/2 mile, gallop 1/2 mile and walk 1/2 mile on 70%. He bolted 8 seconds into the canter (my fault for setting the effort at 70% ) so I was like, Okay, that’s fine, I’ll just fix this tomorrow. But I looked at my training summary and his energy and refreshed it and he had C energy, A fitness. I thought this was reasonable, but I accidentally refreshed it again, and he had B/A. Then, to test, I did it again, and it changed everytime I refreshed it. Saying B/A to C/B to C/A and so on and so forth. I didn’t think such a short workout would change things so much.
Sorry, this isn’t much of an issue, but I thought I’d say it just in case. Sorry if it’s known too.
Somewhere either on the forums or the training summary page it requests that you don’t refresh stuff a bunch like that as well . The numbers will not stay the same and aren’t intended to. FF isn’t in the habit of giving you exact answers about your horses
I only need to train once a week! At first I tried to train my horse all out and got his fenergy to f in 2 days. I now know to NOT train very frequently!
Yeah. I only had to train my starter racehorse, Malibu, a few times before her fitness became A. I’ve raced her once and haven’t trained her and her fitness is still A.
The question is - the key to winning races nowadays is to rest/not race for 3 to 4 months in order to achieve a very fast split time 25sec or less and win any race over any distance??
This certainly appears to be the fashion at present, but if so its not realistic because most racehorses need a run to sharpen them up after such a break from running in a race
I train mine 5 days out of seven, maybe should be 2
Any thoughts fellow trainers
I train all of my runners 5 days per week however I only train lightly (walk, jog, very rarely breeze). But I race very little compared to many trainers. Most of my horses run 5-12 times per year and they are boarded fairly frequently. I never rest them for 3-4 months unless they are injured…
I train my horses 6 days a week, nothing too strenuous and not for long distances. I generally give my horses one race every 3-4 weeks (4-5 if they are 2YO’s) and ship them home for a rest every 3 (for 2 & 3 YO’s) to 6 (older horses) races.
Select Auction attracts the “cream of the crop”, and they generally have reserve prices to match. But there are some deals in there (as far as reserve pricing goes), just doesn’t mean they’re actually “cheap”. 
:01.510 [wet dirt] (She can Fly!! 
