Since my horses have been doing so well and bringing home a lot of paychecks we decided to splurge a little and upgrade our stock. And by “splurge a little” I mean “let’s blow $100k and hope nobody else challenges our bid”. :
For a hundred grand we picked up [color=red]Farewell to Arms, a light bay yearling filly by ICh. [color=blue]Candidate (S)-Ch. [color=red]Home Fries §, by [color=blue]Home Sweet Home. We gunned for her because of her dam’s platinum rank and because we own Candidate’s first stakes winner, [color=red]Super Tuesday. So even if she can’t run a lick she’ll make a valuable broodmare. Win-win!
We’re trying to think up a new name for her. Brain’s turning to scrambled eggs.
I usually don’t splurge at auctions, but I decided to spend $50k on a filly and won!
[color=red]Sirannon is a gorgeous filly by Ch. Irish River (G)-Black Queen, by Black Legend (G). I’ve always wanted a filly by Irish River, but the fact that her broodmare sire is Black Legend sealed the deal. Black Queen’s dam is Reine-de-Course as well, so I am super-psyched about this filly! She was $51,500.
[color=red]Golden Flower is a leggy black filly by GCh. Harvard Bound (S)-Golden Flames (S). She is half to four stakes winners and a MSW, so hoping she will have the talent to match. I got her for only $10,500.
[color=blue]Cortado is a handsome dark bay colt by NCh. Gimme A Shot (S)-Indy Fashion Flair, by A.P. Indy (S). He’s the first foal from his dam, so I don’t know how this cross will turn out. I’m hoping for a nice runner. Indy will be renamed. He was only $13,500.
[color=red]North Shore is a feisty black filly, also by GCh. Harvard Bound (S) and out of Smoke n’Shadows. Her only sibling is multiple stakes-placed and is a pretty consistent runner. Consistency is all I want! She was a last-minute buy, for $20,500.
[color=red]i am super excited as the computer randomly chose me out of 3 bidders for the one horse i really wanted , the only problem is the program did not delete the other bids i had in when it had someone else as leading(in the shuffle) instead of my stable. so waiting on hearing from shanthi but other wise my stable was awarded the
colt Tentatively calling him- [color=blue]Highland Velvet - by Highland Laird (S) out of Grande Finale (G) i really wanted this guy for his breeding alone, i have none of this line in my stable his sire is Chef de Race and of course a leading sire and his dam tho not show much on the track is a gold ranked producer.
after going thru my babies i do have his line in my stable but all as grandsire, this one is my first straight baby from him.
This hS been a very frustrating auction so far. I had bookmarked five horses that I was interested in and placed bids on all 5. Two of them quickly went over the limit of what I could bid and still be able to be active in the bids for the others, so I dropped out of the Auctions for them.
The other 3 Auctions have had me tearing my hair out in frustration. I placed what I considered reasonable Maximum bids on each of them, and have been monitoring those 3 Auctions continually throughout. On a number of occasions, I have watched as the Time Left on those Auctions got down to leas than 3 hours (one even got below 2 hours left), then, the next time I checked, somebody had put in a bid for $500 more than the previous current bid and my Proxy had kicked in with another $500 and the Auction was back up to 11+ hours left. My frustration isn’t with the fact that somebody has tried to put in a higher bid than mine (it wouldn’t be an Auction if people couldn’t do that). My frustration lies in the fact that they have waited until that late in the individual Auctions and then only put in the minimum raise. It’s almost as if somebody has decided that they are going to play ‘spoiler’ and force the bids up for the horses with low current bids but aren’t putting in a serious bid. If they put their bids in with 5 or 6 hours left or they raised the current bid by more than the minimum, it wouldn’t be so frustrating.
[BTW - I’m not implying that somebody is singling me out. I have started monitoring the complete Auction page and have sorted the list by Time Left. I noticed on one occasion yesterday evening, Ballydoyle were heading the list and were winning about 6-8 horses whose Auctions had less than 2 hours left and Godolphin were also up there with a bunch of Auctions with about 2 hours left. When I next looked, there were no horses whose Auctions had less than 2 hours left.]
I find it interesting that after 1 full day of the Auction, barely 10% of the horses have actually been sold and a number of them opened with the maximum $100,000 bid. For an Auction with a 12 hour Time Span, I would have expected a much higher percentage, especially since more than a third of the remaining Auctions have a current bid of less than $10,000.
Forgive my ranting/rambling. I guess I just needed a Forum to vent my frustration.
It is a rather peculiar auction, the strangest I’ve seen yet. I’ve been monitoring the auction, too, and it’s gotten to the point that I do a mental fist-pump whenever a horse actually gets sold.
The same’s been happening to me Lewis, as you said very frustrating to repeatedly be so near and yet so far :( Hoping I’ll finally get somewhere today!
Just happened again, one horse come up to being an hour left and someone’s increased the bid by $1000 so back to the top of the countdown again >:(
This is actually how auctions generally run…most horses don’t sell in the first day, unless they’re the few that get early bids and no one cares to challenge them.
Lewis, your point about people possibly purposefully waiting to “snipe” you in order to reset the clock is a fair one…however, I’m not sure how to combat that, really. I could implement a rule that you can only have bids out for a certain number of horses at one time (if you’re the high bidder), but that would limit peoples’ ability to have backup horses picked out in case their first pick(s) didn’t work out. Obviously I don’t want people rigging the system, but I also don’t want to jeopardize the regular bidding process.
Another option, which I’ve considered in the past, is to re-do the auction system to actually simulate a real auction. We used to do live auctions in the chat room, but due to time zones, real life commitments, etc, that didn’t work so well. We could do a similar sort of concept via the game, though…auction off lot #1, probably with a shorter reset time (rather than 12 hours)…once lot 1 is sold, move on to lot 2. Only accept active bids for the lot that is currently being bid on, but allow “advance bidding” on other lots…so if you know you really want lot 43, you could bid 100k (in this auction’s case) in advance, and lot 43 would start off with your bid active.
That would prevent people from rigging the system (mostly), but would possibly mean auctions would take weeks. I’m willing to consider it, though, if people like the idea. (Or if people have other/better ideas.)
Could the Auction be set up so that, if a bid comes in which is less than the Current Bidders Maximum, while the Current Bid would be updated, the Time Left wouldn’t, i.e. Person A opens with a Max Bid of $20K so that the Current Bid is $1,000, then Person B puts in a bid of $1,500 which, because of Person A’s Proxy, makes the Current Bid $2,000, the Time Left does not get reset? I’m not sure how easy that would be to code.
I think that might be a fair compromise–the clock doesn’t reset unless a new high bid is established. The exception, of course, being that the $100k horses get reset.
That being said, I will say that the prices for horses are much better this year than they have been in the past. We typically see a number of horses going for $1,000. That seems to be the exception to the rule this year.
That if someone bids on a horse but doesn’t meet the previous bidders maximum it doesn’t restart the countdown unless as Cat said the bid is 100k. Sorry, should have made myself a bit clearer.
This should be live in the code now. If someone can confirm that if they bid on a horse and get the “your bid wasn’t high enough” message, that the clock doesn’t reset, that would be great. I don’t want to bid on anyone just as a test case, though.
I tried that with a horse that had 11+ hours left and it didn’t reset the clock, so it looks like the code change worked. Thanks for your quick response.
Can you delete my bid plus the automatic rebid so that the current bidder, Black Storm West, doesn’t end up paying $1,000 more than they might have needed to? The horse was the Doplomat-Delicate Luck yearling filly, http://www.finalfurlong.org/viewhorse.php?horse=12993
Thanks again.
Oops, I just reread your previous post and realized that I did exactly what you said you didn’t want to do. Sorry about that {holds out his wrist to be slapped}.
Got both the main two horse I was looking for which I’m happy at.
[color=blue]Wizard Prince - Yearling colt.[color=blue]ICh. Prince of Wonder x [color=red]Ch. Special Gift ([color=blue]NCh. Highland Wizard). I love his linage and had to have him. Got him for $25,000
[color=red]Devil’s Dawn (Formally Unnamed) - yearling filly. [color=blue]NCh. Devil May Care x [color=red]Dawning Light ([color=blue]Crimson Lad). I own a colt by her sire and i’ve been watching for any foals by him for sale. Spent more then I would have liked but she’s worth it at $54,500
because of an earlier bug it had let me bid when i was still in the running for the one i got whoever wants the following baby[color=red] my max on her is 50k just go over that by $1 and you will lead as i have spent my 100k this is for anyone that is looking at her.
[color=maroon]Unnamed 2014 Weanling Rumor Has It Sudden Appearance Unraced Final Furlong None $14,000 Iron Spur Stables 0d 3h 3m 4s Bid
Free For All whom we renamed [color=blue]Fawkes ala Harry Potter fame. Devil May Care (S) X Phoenix (G) - Fawkes is 1/2 to 3 multiple stakes winner and another 2 single stakes winners. I really like his pedigree, both his sire and dam throw consistent high quality runners. Here’s hoping he’s another, looks like he may also have a little chasing ability, two of his siblings have shown ability in that sphere.
JeSais we also renamed [color=blue]Querido in a similar vein to his 1/2 sister Romancer who was my first horse on FF and met an untimely death after birthing her first foal. Needless to say this guy was pretty much a sentimental buy though he’s got a great family on his side as well! Crystal Rainbow (S) X Believe Me (S) - His sire has had quite the success early on with only 2 foal crops consisting of a total of 13 winners from 23 starters and already has 3 multiple stakes winners, one of whom is a multi-millionaire and another 2 stakes winners. Those statistics are more impressive considering most of his foals seem to need some time to mature and look to hit their stride as 3yo’s. On his mother’s side he has quite the impressive family. He is a 1/2 brother to 2 multiple stakes winners one which is a millionaire and another who is a multi-millionaire. He also has another 2 siblings who are single stakes winners, one of whom is the aforementioned Romancer and the other I also own, Accolade. All 8 of his siblings who are of racing age are winners. Needless to say we are pretty excited about this guy!
Well I have 3. With a new stable I probably should not have invested in a weanling but I bred each of these so I said what the heck
Contentious NCh. Seattle Sorcerer x Ch. Aerolite Yearling
Spirt Moon NCh. Lasting Spirit x Ch. Harvest Goddess Yearling
Last Road to Cross NCh. Lasting Spirit x Ch. All Too Cross Weanling
I could implement a rule that you can only have bids out for a certain number of horses at one time (if you’re the high bidder), but that would limit peoples’ ability to have backup horses picked out in case their first pick(s) didn’t work out. Obviously I don’t want people rigging the system, but I also don’t want to jeopardize the regular bidding process.
I’m willing to consider it, though, if people like the idea. (Or if people have other/better ideas.)
I don’t want to bid on anyone just as a test case, though.