I have been playing this game for ten years and have never been particularly successful at it. Until 3 years ago I had always been able to survive into the following year. The last 3 years I have had deteriorating results and without the tax free year last year I would have already been out of the game. Sadly this has been my worst year ever with only 36% OTB and 34 winners (8%) most of which have been in low level races worth little money. Without the money back from shipping (thank you Shanthi!) I would be leaving the game at the end of this year, totally bankrupt.
As I currently lose money every race day I have come to the conclusion that the best way to survive until next year is to pretty much stop racing at all for the remainder of this year. I would still like to see some of my horses race though as I feel that it is probably my fault, as a player, that the stable is doing so badly. Therefore ALL of my racers will be going up for lease from 1st October to 24th December (so I can retire/sell as necessary before the end of the year).
Cost probably
I think, that if I ever get bored or into trouble, I’d sell/retire most of my herd… leaving maybe 10 horses to almost start over again. Everyone started with two horses so it would be almost like that - except that you would have a handful of super nice horses (or your sentimental favourites) and perhaps some money.
And perhaps it would be nice to be able to change location for example…? That would even make some sense comparing to real life - if you had a horse racing stable and you’d want to move to another country, you would probably sell almost everything and only take some horses to the new place. It would be another fresh start too.
I agree with Hilda. Back when I only had a few horses, I could give individual attention to each. As the stable grew, I got overwhelmed trying to keep up with that many, and my horses’ performance dropped. It wasn’t until did something similar: I sold a large portion of my stock and I adopted the idea of making one system (goal: figure out the preferences for equipment/running style through jockey comments) for all horses, and selling all future ones who (sadly) couldn’t conform/perform under that system that things finally started to improve. I was very much in your shoes, Gwen. I really do hope things get better for you. We would miss you too much if you were to go!
Thank you both for your nice and helpful comments.
Hilda this is pretty much what i am doing. I did think of leaving and starting afresh but I think starting with 2 random horses is too difficult now.
I’d love to change location to be honest. The new reduced shipping fees as well as the boarding stables are a real help but they still preclude shipping horses overseas to the US and Woodbine and Australia to enter the really small races and i like to use these as “test” races for those whose racing preferences I can’t figure out at all.
Alyssa thank you for that advice, I think it makes a lot of sense and i will try it out for myself