That’s it, pretty much. Both of them don’t have many foals to race, so their number of races are roughly similar (740 to 900), but POW has significantly higher points because he’s got one very nice horse who races a lot.
(This is the flaw in either system - one/a few monster foals can skew the rankings. It’s sort of self-continuing, too - you’re obviously going to continue racing a really nice horse for quite a while, but if you run a dud 10 times and it’s dead last every time, you’ll just retire it. So the average across all the foals gets skewed towards the monster foal because they raced more.)
If anyone has some suggestions for how to adjust things to account for monster foals, feel free. I think the stud rankings are OK for now, though (POW and SIR are both the same rank, and as they get more foals racing if SIR really is better because he has more consistently nice foals, his average will go up while POW’s will go down.)
It would be easy enough to mimic the stud’s requirements, just on a lower level. So 300 races for studs is on the assumption that 30 foals (1 full crop) race 10 times each, and 500 is based on 2(ish) crops racing 10 times. For mares I suppose the equivalent would be 30 races and 50 races. (Since horses can/do race more than 10 times/year, so 2 foals could get the 30 races by the end of the second’s 2yo year, in theory.)
So your mare would get back to gold rank once her one baby races for a few years, or she gets more babies out on the track.
That would drop 15 mares from Platinum to Gold who don’t have 50 races, and 47 from Gold to Silver who don’t have 30 races.
Hi, I’ve tried to read over the entire thread again and can’t find anything addressing horses racing who may not be mature yet. Is a mare or stallion penalized by a foal who doesn’t do well at 2 and 3 but starts winning at 4?
I’m asking because as a trainer of a few late maturing horses they may not do well at 2 and 3 but show some promise by placing in a few races, because of this I continue to race them in possibly 15-20 races a year (so they gain experience) when suddenly at age 4 they are winning stakes races.
If the horse is not a winner at 2 or 3, but was raced consistantly, does it hurt the dam or sires ranking?
Maybe only average the top 5 races in a year for each foal so that “hasbeen” and “immature” horses will not have such an impact but great horse will still have a good impact especially if their 5 top races include 5 stake wins…
Yes, using this system a sire/dam would have his/her ranking points go down if you continue to race horses under the age of 5 who aren’t doing well. (Age 5+ only counts for the horse point-wise so if they suck at that age it doesn’t hurt the ranking average.)
Looking in the database, of the current racehorses, their average age to stop being immature is 2.88 years. So most horses will be mature by age 3, and certainly by age 4. (For exact numbers: Horses maturing sometime during their 2yo year? 6,456. 3yo year? Another 2,942. 4yo year? 571. 5yo year? 11.)
Babies don’t need that much racing under their belts to get experience, so the assumption (for breed ranking purposes) is that if your foal is running badly as a 2yo (or 3yo, if you think it’s still immature), you put it out to pasture to grow for a bit rather than continue to race it over and over and have it not earn any money. (Because what’s the point? You get no money and, for the breeder, the parents’ breed rankings suffer.)
Basically the rule of thumb is that people won’t race horses that suck. Whether that’s because they’re over-the-hill and should be retired, or they’re babies and need more time to grow, the game will assume that you don’t want to throw money down the drain running a horse that doesn’t want to run. Obviously there are exceptions (trying out a new surface to see if that works, giving a youngster some starts to get experience, etc) but I wouldn’t expect anyone to run a horse 20+ times without it earning anything at 2/3, and then have it start winning races at 4. (Feel free to prove me wrong, but I’d still wonder at the cost of those 20+ races.)
I think the entire point is to get a view of the parent’s ability to throw foals who can run
It makes sense. With that being said would it be neat to have “crop” breed rankings for an at-a-glance purpose? For example, to have seperate breed rankings for average 2, 3, 4, & 5+, crops. If a stud had multi gold and silver rankings then that would be awesome and not necessarily hurt him if he is bronze at 2 & 5+, but breeders would be able to decipher this studs maturity range more easily. This way different age ranges wont necessarily decrease their breed ranking but would rather make it more dimensional? Maybe? Just think out loud.
Hm…maybe. I’m not sure how an age-based breed ranking would work. Is a crop of 10 foals that includes 9 winners and 1 unplaced more gold/platinum worthy than a crop of 10 foals with 1 MSW, 2 winners, and 7 unplaced?
I’m also not sure the best way to access/present that information (because you could want something super specific, like a sire who throws stakes winners at 2 and 3 from 8-9f turf).
I’ll think about it, though. Plenty of scope to add things to the beta.
Whether that’s because they’re over-the-hill and should be retired, or they’re babies and need more time to grow, the game will assume that you don’t want to throw money down the drain running a horse that doesn’t want to run. Obviously there are exceptions (trying out a new surface to see if that works, giving a youngster some starts to get experience, etc) but I wouldn’t expect anyone to run a horse 20+ times without it earning anything at 2/3, and then have it start winning races at 4. (Feel free to prove me wrong, but I’d still wonder at the cost of those 20+ races.)
With that being said would it be neat to have “crop” breed rankings for an at-a-glance purpose? For example, to have seperate breed rankings for average 2, 3, 4, & 5+, crops. If a stud had multi gold and silver rankings then that would be awesome and not necessarily hurt him if he is bronze at 2 & 5+, but breeders would be able to decipher this studs maturity range more easily. This way different age ranges wont necessarily decrease their breed ranking but would rather make it more dimensional? Maybe? Just think out loud.