I can’t remember if this feature has been discussed. It would be nice if we could have “Retained” Stable Jockeys who would be assigned to our horses whenever entered in a race.
One problem that I can see with that is what happens if you enter more than one horse in a race or if two Stables with the same “Stable Jockey” enter horses in the same race.
I like to use the same default jockeys for all my horses and it is frustrating to be the first to enter a horse in a race only to find out when the final Race Form is produced that my horse ended up with some Random Jockey because all three of my default Jockeys are riding other horses. Perhaps priority for Jockey assignment can be given based on when the horses were entered, I.e. the first horse entered gets top priority, etc.
I think it’s been mentioned briefly before, but would require a complete overhaul of how jockeys work.
Part of the point is that your main jockey might not be available.
How would you envision stable jockeys work? You pay Jim Bob a retainer to be your private jockey every year? Is that on top of their extra fees? What if you enter 2-3 horses in a given race? Do you want 3 stable jockeys?
I worry that it would give bigger/richer stables an advantage, because they’d be able to afford a private jockey (which, even if it were added, would never be a free option because that would defeat the point of the pool of jockeys). What’s the cutoff for getting a private jockey - ability to pay (hypothetically) $100k/year? A stable of a certain size? (In real life no jockey would agree to not be freelance unless s/he had regular rides, which means a large stable with lots of entries.)
That would give preference to people who are able/willing to be online when entries open, which I won’t do. As long as you enter by the deadline, you should have the same chance as anyone else of getting the jockey you want.
Or we could be given an option to create our own, and be responsible for training the jockey to fit our horses - if the said horses didnt like the jockey and/or he didnt do well, then we still have the option of using in-game jockeys
They way Jock’s are done now are pretty fair. The only thing I would want, if the system is changed, is a general idea of the jockys attributes or experience in certain categories if they have a bearing on how he races the horse.
Would agree with that. To be honest I just pick a jockey for the horse when it is 2yo and stick with it as i am unable to tell how much difference a given jockey makes to the horses performance. It takes such a long time before a jockey gets to know a horse well it’s difficult to decide whether the horse does badly because it hates it’s jockey or because they don’t know each other enough
