Happy New Year, everone!
I’m glad we all survived as a Final Furlong community
I will be celebrating the New Year’s Eve seven hours earlier than usually, as I’m still in Mexico - for ten more days! You can expect my 2028 foal crop to have a Mexican theme, but not just in Spanish language, as I also have a dictionary of five major native languages (and there is 60+ of them!).
In Final Furlong, we did surprisingly well, despite all the Training Schedule shenanigans. 49% OTB is more than my usual average. It’s been 11 years already… in only 3 of those I entered more races than this year but OTB was lower.
This won’t put me in the Hall of Fame but I’m still happy about the results.
Didn’t raise any champions this year; I mean, some of them earned the titles, but I used to have more exceptional horses. My homebred 2yo Flora won a stakes race, so that’s nice. 3yo Echo Chamber doesn’t seem able to do this but I keep entering her…
I’m really happy about Ch. Influencer by my retired stallion Al Mundhir’s last crop. He won three big Grade 1 stakes and I hope Littlefield will qualify him for stud! Ch. Ganzeer owned by Cricket Hill seems capable too. NCh. Space Chips is still doing great as a stud. I hope to find time to advertise him soon.
Overall, we were ranked 3rd for highest earning stable ($39M), 4th for most wins (23% wins), and 5th for OTB percentage (66%) in 2027. We actually did about $10M worse than the last 3 years and win/OTB was down versus last year, but the last 2 years in particular were REALLY good so I can’t complain.
Highlights out of this year was Death Eater and Warm Dust qualifying for stud. Death Eater we picked up for 5k as a 2yo, and he is the first son of Hogsmeade to qualify; Warm Dust is the first Frankel son to qualify and we had claimed him as an unraced 3yo. Both are adding even more SC power to the herd (at least half or more of our stallions are SC specialists). We plan on trying both at races in January and just seeing how they do.
We currently have 3 more needing just 1 SW win to qualify. If two fail this year, they will definitely be retiring. Luckily the third just turned 4, so there’s still plenty of hope.
This year, the first crops for Local Haunt, Honeydukes, Fivel, and Dark Ages all make their race debuts this spring. Fingers crossed for some early talent!
2027 was our biggest earning year to date and our second best % OTB. Finished the year with 30% winners to runners which is our best ever. We also sent out our highest number of runners.
As with most of the years I’ve been playing, the female members of the team outperformed the boys. I seem to do much better with fillies and mares but I’m hopeful that one or two of the boys might show an interest in stud qualification this year.
Good luck to everyone for the new racing year and the upcoming breeding season.
I’ve been playing FF for a long time and have never held the ambition to challenge, always wary of some of the bigger stables over the years and not having as deeper pockets to buy better stock, relying on homebreds etc.
Even this year it was a few months in before I thought I’d try and win the most races for the year, racing majority from Australia I used to spell most of my horses during the Australian break with only the odd stakes horse heading overseas, this year I sent them far and wide and it was pleasing to see some good results. We eclipsed last years total of 618 to record 727 winners for the year. I consciously raced some of the non stakes horses more, not only to help win more races but to bolster some of the fields so it wasn’t just FF horses.
Still the year isn’t without some frustration, I’ve always been cautious not to over race the stable but I feel this has gone against me somewhat as I have 9 boys stuck 1 win shy of stud qualification, 2 will retire failing to get there and another 3 falling 2 short I’ve tried to race some of the younger stock more regularly to hopefully qualify earlier in their careers.
Bubbles being the standout highlight of the year, as an Australian the Golden Slipper is the pinnacle for our two year olds and he managed to win that along the way to 4SWs
Numerous other 3SWs horses but Bubbles was the fav.
Thanks for the fun everyone - I really enjoy the distraction FF provides.
Pretty good year despite being around 10% down with runners on the board and winner percentage also down on the last couple of years. 257 wins from 1231 starts earning $53.7M with 58% OTB
9 Breeders Cup wins helped on the prize money side as would have been well down on previous years.
Highlights of the year
Heart Of Honor winning her 2nd BC Distaff
Crisp Rum winning BC SC Classic & King George Chase
Hey Fool winning Dubai World Cup & BC Classic
Medaille D’Or winning BC Sprint & Dubai Golden Shaheen
Bridge Hero staying unbeaten as a 2yo winning BC Juvenile
I have reduced our broodmares right down to a much more manageable 39. Love playing the game but I’m guilty of not spending so much time on it as I used to. Nearly packed up earlier in the year when all the training went wrong etc etc … glad I changed my mind
Anyway, happy new year to everyone
Pretty happy with last year overall. It was the third year of Final Furlong for me (I returned on an old account from an earlier spell, which only lasted a couple of months I think) and there’s a steady line of growth in horses, number of races entered and money.
This year was our biggest to date with 723 races entered and $6,3M. Tiny compared to the bigger stables, but still plenty to keep me busy and enjoying myself. Our OTB percentage went slightly down to 58%, but still very happy with it. This was also the year I really entered stakes races for the first time and I’m very happy Gotapa is now home to a couple of MSW such as Ch. Bimbijy, Golden Chrome, and Ch. Solid Sun. I hope that this line continues in 2024 and I’ll eventually have stallion prospects too haha.
This year will be the year that our first homebreds will enter the track, so I’m really looking forward to it!
I really enjoyed reading everyone’s reviews. Happy new year to everyone and good luck with FF in 2028!
Last year was rough for me both in-game and IRL. My father passed away last Christmas and I spent most of the following year dealing with legal issues regarding his estate. Couple that with the chaos that is self-employment, and I had little time for Final Furlong.
Overall, Sakura Springs horses only ran a total of 226 races, the lowest count since 2020. Win % wasn’t terrible (23%) and our OTB was acceptable at 51% (though that’s down 10% from the year before). Earnings were just shy of $11 million.
Major standout was GCh. Charismatic qualifying for stud, so can’t complain there!
Also was happy with Ch. Little Red Dress (Player x Alley Girl) winning the BC Filly & Mare Sprint. I almost missed the BC altogether with how wild last year was.
I ended up selling a notable number of horses earlier in the year just to try and keep things manageable, so while only a handful of my 2025 crop are still with me, it looks like 24 of them (48%) were winners and 6 (12%) were stakes winners, so congrats to their owners! Two of the 2YO stakes winners still belong to me - Smoke Divide (Fool To Be Smokin’ x Diversion) and Executive Legacy (Quarren x Limelight).
Hoping to be in a better place this year and get back into the game. I currently have three 6YO boys who lack one or two wins for stud qualification. They were sorely under-raced last year.
I’ve tried to race some of the younger stock more regularly to hopefully qualify earlier in their careers. 
