Looking for Opinions on 3yo races and more!

[Ripley]

I know we just started the sprinter triple series and it may be a little too late for this year, but I would like to discuss/get some opinions on some things that concern me.

1. A lot of us have expanded rosters, probably the vast majority of us. Because of this the bigger stables have to be pickier about where they send their horses, otherwise, they'll clash with others on their string. This is one negative that affects the larger stables and benefits the smaller stables. The smaller stables can afford to send their horses all over the place and beat on their opponents in any series they wish, while other stables have dedicated horses for specific areas who have not raced in other big name races before that dedicated series. Please be mindful of this when judging 3yo horses next year. Some people have purposely pointed horses for specific series versus other horses who are just sweeping in to pad HOTY records later on in the year--not to say this is wrong, but it is not exactly fair. The second half of the year is when the top three year olds are supposed to take on the older horses. I would hate to set a dangerous precedent of three year olds not running against older until the BC.


2. This point is for sprinter races. There are many, many sprinters who had to run in non-HOTY races like my Swing Dancer or Cavvy's Flying Fashion and so on and so forth. Battlestone Downs provided an outlet for horses to escape the top sprinting colts. I think it bothers me that people are rating HOTY sprint races so high for three year olds when there aren't that many 3yo sprinting HOTY preps to be found and if there were, they were hog-tied by the sprinting males. In these 4 sprinting divisions, I do think non-HOTY should be weighted somewhat as much as those HOTY races, especially for the fillies or turf sprinting males.


3. It is my opinion that we need more marathon three year old races in the first half of the year. As I looked through the 4 horses in the Breeders' Stakes, the TTC, and the TC, I'm struck by how few horses have run at 12F. While the distance series at BSD is a mix of races, the longest of them is 12F and is a distance that the majority of our 3yo horses have not run. Take the horses in the Breeder's Stakes. Between them, the horse with the most starts at 12F was the winner, but he only had 3 races and was campaigned much harder to catch up to higher graded horses. The rest had 1-2 starts over the 12F distance so technically, none of them are really proficient at 12F. Idk if GHF and BSD can add more to help us out as The Wire's calendar is pretty crowded at the moment, but it is something to think about.


4. This is not my point so much as a point made by Kenny in the cbox that I think is worth discussing. In past years, horses like Infinite Warcry only made 8 starts in a season on his way to a BC victory. I get that we have expanded the racing calendar to 3 racetracks and horses can run close to 24 races a year if run 2x a month, sometimes more. I run my horses 2x a month with a month vacation thrown in(sometimes more) and often don't like when horses aren't raced a lot, however, I do think we need to ponder some things. Horses who take 1-2 month vacations should not be penalized when they come back to the track, particularly juveniles who run the toughest schedules because they need to pad their records (at least on my website and I'm sure on others as well). There are some points in the calendar when distance races are hard to come by for said juveniles anyway.

Should horses be penalized for under racing? Over racing? Should there be limits on how many races juvenile horses can run? Is overpopulation creating the over racing or is it more because we have three tracks to spread our stock over? Would anyone be open to running juvis in less races per year if they have already proven their superiority in HOTY races?


5. The last question brings me to another point... Does anyone think after a certain point, winners of juvi HOTY races should not be allowed to compete against undercard juvis in undercard races? I feel that sometimes people with HOTY winning juvis enter undercards just to take advantage of the weaker field and pad their win record going into the three year old season. Anyone else feel this way?

My aim with this thread is to get opinions and develop our community a little more. You can discuss anything pertaining to racing in this thread. Have any problems with judging? Have anymore suggestions? Please respond to my questions above and let me know your opinion.

[Cavallo]

I would also like to bring up another point and maybe you said it already, but the amount of upsets. I understand that they can happen, but it is happening with such EXORBITANT frequency that it is EXTREMELY unfair to horses that are good. In real life, for example, California Chrome, is on a freaking roll and yet here for example, Natural Selection, who's been poignant this season, flops the final two legs to upsets and lost on his specialty to the turf, to Altercation (not putting him down Frosty, just saying that from record and experience he was the dark horse in that race). I don't think that it is fair to people who have good horses to constantly be upturned by constant upsets.

I know that they happen and people need their limelight but there is something severely off in how people are evaluating quality of races....(which ties in to Ripley's point) and the number of upsets....is frustrating...to say the least.

Now i would like to also point out that this largely is only happening in the three year old division. Older horses have been running pretty consistent. I don't understand why it seems to be that we're having this issue with the three year old division. I can't tell you how many times, I looked at classic race results and asked myself, "how the hell did that happen?"

There has to be more consistency. I know horses cannot win all the time, but when a horse is doing well that HAS to be given credit and consideration, versus treated as a handicap and a penalty.

I would also like to state that this isn't me attacking any one person or because solely of the Breeder's results. This has been a year long pattern across the board and quite frankly, I'm sick of it. Which has also been why I've been constantly asking for feedback in races that don't make sense. It isn't because I'm bent out of shape, I'm literally trying to figure out what the hell people are looking at while they're judging.

[Ripley]

Before people go after Cav for speaking her opinion, I would like to point out that I have felt the same way on several occasions.

We need to develop a more consistent system of judging. I do understand upsets, believe me, especially in weak divisions like the 3yo filly turf and 3yo filly dirt. I just don't understand how we are soooo consistent in judging older horses and juveniles, but not in the three year old division. So also express your opinion here without jumping on Cav because she is not the only one who feels this way.

[Isabelle]

I'm confused, when you judge, are you judging a horse who wins based on how many wins they have? The one who gets the most firsts wins? Because for me, upsets happen to help fairness. The same horse can't keep winning over and over and over. I say I favor upsets and the underdogs when I feel they deserve the win via time on tracks and experience.

I'm not one that can comment about most of what is said, but I would like to say something on the amount of horse racing. I don't penalize a horse who has come back from a month off, I feel they are fresh and got a break. I do penalize a horse that has run 3 times in one month. I've found at least 3 or 4 horses judging in the last few weeks that are guilty of this. I think there is something to say for a field like say in August, when a horse is going into a race with 8 or less races and the rest of the field has 14, depending on how well that horse raced and in what quality. I would base that on a lack of experience to a degree depending on the field and type of race entered.

I strongly believe that right now, because everyone has bloated stables, we just have more competition. So that means lower places for horses and wins are simply harder to come by. I think because we got rid of workouts and enabled larger fields, people do not have the same consistency with results. I know I don't. I think horses will need to race longer to get to G1 status, and if we just bloat out and make a ton more races (I think we need a larger variety in areas) we'll just go back to the way it was before, more spread out with smaller racing fields and easier wins. Some of you older members might disagree with me on this point but I have been here since season 13 and I've noticed this now this season especially. More horses=more competition=more difficult to get wins. It's upsetting people that they're horses aren't winning, and we all have large youngster fields up and coming, which is why I think you're asking for a limit of how many times a horse can race. Is it more important to win, or be competitive and find a realistic sense to the game? Most racing that I see there aren't generally 2 or 3 horses entered. *shrug* Just sayin, looking at breeders who get like what 10-14 per race? We don't have that level of fields.

I don't know if that makes sense, but I'd rather this game be fun, not scientific down to a tee. If we have a head scratching year, we have one. I'm here for fun, I'd rather just go with it and see what happens. No one I believe is trying to be unfair or vindictive in judging, I say organize the races a bit better (more 2 yo races that are NOT G5+!) and make a rule maybe if a horse has won 3 HOTY races within the season or 6 months or something they can't enter undercards, but again if that horse flails and needs an undercard to boost or win, they can't get it. It's too many what ifs for me I guess.

[Ripley]

It's not the horse with the most number of wins when I judge. I usually go with class level over wins. A horse at the elite level beats horses who have been racing against 2-3 horse fields in lower HOTYs or even larger undercard races. I guess I just pay attention more than the average member. I know what members are pointing for when I look at their horses.

I have to say I'm not having as much fun this season as I did in past years. And it's not because I'm not winning at a clip that I was previously. There aren't any workouts, people very rarely write articles, weeks are dragging, we have more judging arguments and there is just no consistency to judging 3yos. I've almost pondered giving up the game because it has become terribly frustrating. I really wish I could step down as an admin sometimes because I'm tired of keeping the peace, putting up race weeks and nagging people to get a move on and judge.

I feel like we need a massive calendar overhaul now, not 6 SIM months from now. What I meant by limiting races for juveniles is that I do not believe juveniles should be running as much as they are, but we have no choice because everyone is gunning for the BC or the next season's 3yo calendar. I don't know. I guess I feel helpless. I'd rather point out how I'm feeling than let it fester and make me want to quit.

[Isabelle]

No one wants you to quit, Ripley. If you want to step down as admin or if you feel some more mods are needed maybe ask the other admin and select one or two to ask for help.

Maybe appointing people a number of races to run per month? I know that sounds weird, but if saying each members needs a minimum of running 3/4 races per game week or go by the month? *waits for people to say they don't have time*

I don't write a great deal of articles because honestly, my horses aren't doing anything fabulous to write about, and I can't sit and say LET MY HORSIES WIN!!!! after everybody's names on my horses list. I guess I can write something up on mine soon, but I don't really like to sit and look like I'm complaining or fishing for wins.

Is consistent racing really that important? Does it really make you that upset? Consistent racing, for you, is continually placing in the same positions for each horse? That sort of makes things stagnant. If horse continually place in the same spots (Phoenix's favored third position this year) then they don't go anywhere and we're back with the same horses winning. Maybe clarify what you mean by consistency? As I said before, larger fields mean more dynamic and different placings by default. If you've got a field with 6 horses who could all win, someone's gonna have to take those last 4-6 spots, which I know you know, but that will bump consistency of horses placing higher. That isn't the horses or owner's fault, it just means there is more competition.

[creativecause]

Isa you spoke almost verbatim what I was going to say about this. Also keep in mind I generally try to stay out of this conversation because I know my opinion clashes with others and someone or everyone is going to get VERY upset with me.
On judging races in general though...
I'm in total agreement with isa on this one. Upsets are needed, and statistically speaking favorites only win races 35% of the time in the real world. We can't have horses with the most wins winning races by default, for the most part (in most cases) it's unrealistic. Since fairness seems to be the main concern here, that logic isn't fair. Not to mention if we ran this place like that horses like my own SmashDashing or All That Jazz, even Frosty's Melodious will never win a race. It's ridiculous to think that way. Because from experience, the game isn't fun when your horses can't seem to catch a win or are doing rather poor. And as isa stated, I play this game for fun,with that said, I am also going to put out there that the moment this game stops being fun for me I'm out. People need to stop getting so defensive and I'm serious. There are some races that I just stay away from because I know that how I judge them will upset someone and I don't enjoy being attacked because someone thought their horse should have won. So, I'm going to blatantly state here: I don't have a problem with how judging currently works and when everyone has a different way of going about judging then it keeps the results varied, you know... like real life.
I don't think upsets are happening all the time. I really don't. And maybe that's just my definition of upset is different than everyone elses. I looked into judging the Breeders' Stakes and got the exact same results as Cruisey did, but I decided not to judge it because I thought I was biased simply because I had judged the last leg. Now I don't know why these "upsets" are happening more often in the 3yo races, but that's just the way it is. 
I agree that our field sizes are getting bigger and thus we're getting more out of money finishes, I'm pretty sure I've expressed this point heavily before.

We have some growing pains to get through here.

[Rendezvous]

I think it's because a lot of us are so accustomed to all of the big races that a 3 year old can come into during that particular season. The juvenile season is usually mostly about breaking the maiden and making G5, if the horse gets to G4 or even G3, that's awesome, but if they don't most just direct the horse to that goal the following year. Older horses have already done what they needed to do, they've done the maiden races, they've might've gotten a big race under their belt as a three year old, but as an older horse they're mostly racking up earnings and kind of giving a final showcase of what they're capable of during the last 2-3 years on the track before they retire. So it's no wonder why judging 3 year olds is so inconsistent as the it's the basically the highest point of their career, there's the bigger, more easily known races like the Crowns and people want to be really delicate about which 3 year olds come up on top that year because you never know if it'll it make or break the horse for the rest of its career.  Sounds like a bunch of nonsense I know, but it's just my thought on it xD

Horses shouldn't be penalized for a month off, unless say, we had an article describing an injury for the horse or something. Some horses a month off could possibly help them, I remember Ripley telling me to give Roussong a full month off of racing when I first got him from her. I think underracing in terms of a week or a month off shouldn't be penalized as much as overracing would.

We've got tons of horses piling up which isn't a bad thing as it means more than two or three entries. I honestly like the fact that we don't have to do a lot of workouts, but I do believe I have an idea. GHF is considered as the track with the harder races, so why not keep the original rule for GHF that horses are to have plenty of workouts? The Wire is the easier track so it could stick with the once a year or change of owner workout. GHF is incredibly competitive and more workouts will make the fight to win even more exciting over there. Those who didn't want to write all that much or didn't have the time could stick to races on BSD/Wire and only race a handful of horses over there. I'm sure the more competitive members wouldn't mind writing more workouts for GHF.

And people, let's be honest. If we want the game to be realistic we have to accept (hope I don't sound like a hypocrite here) that some horses will SUCK at racing, point blank. Not every horse can be a champion, okay? It's not even fun if every horse is this million dollar earning horse with multiple HOTY. Regardless of their bloodlines, not every horse can be a winner. I wouldn't mind seeing more non G1 horses retire from the track with only less than $40,000 under their belts. There's nothing wrong with an undercard horse, for some stables those horses probably make easy money on the track. If every horse wasn't a winner, we'd honestly appreciate the successful horses more. At the moment there are SO many successful horses that I don't even think I could tell you a bad one, and just because a horse does poorly doesn't mean you delete them. If a race only has one horse entered, for pete's sake just generate a random horse for the site so that the horse can have something to run with and not mess up that member's race schedule. It won't hurt anyone, and if the site had say a group of horses that the staff came up with to race in races where there was only one horse entered, horses wouldn't have to be thrown into higher graded races.

Next on the list, people aren't going to judge if someone forces them to judge. If judging was more appealing and not a headache in some cases people would be happy to judge. If a race doesn't have a judge, guess what  could be done? Randomly generate. End of story, that way even without a judge it would be equally judged regardless. So Ripley you wouldn't have to 'nag' anyone anymore and you wouldn't feel as stressed about your position. If people complain about the results from a judgeless race being randomly generated, they'll know to judge next time. I know I don't judge anymore so I especially back this idea.

And it's up to members whether or not they want to risk running their juveniles a lot throughout their first year on the track. Excessive racing as a 2 year old might even dampen their 3 year old season, it would just be something to plan out in the future. 

I do think that some races should have a different max of entries than others. Not all races should have a max of fourteen, this could be limited to undercards only maybe.

Judging is fine as is, there's no other way we could do it anyway (excluding the random generator idea for races without a judge). 

But I do think everything moves so slowly and I think a deadline needs to be set on race entries and results. Like results should all be posted on the Sunday of each week or something, and like stated earlier if there's no judge, randomly generate the results. If there was an actual timeline for entries to be closed (say Saturday) and results to be posted we'd be able to stick to a strict schedule.

And as for entries, I'd imagine all the forms for the weeks could be posted up during the first week of every month so that everyone has a chance to enter their horses, but they'd have to make sure to enter by the Saturday of the week before. 

There's my input, I hope no one gets mad at me. I'm not mad or upset with anyone, never have been and don't intend to.

It's a lovely game with pixel ponies, surrounded by friends in a fun community. I'd prefer to keep it that way.

[S u N f r O s T ~]

Ripley
1. A lot of us have expanded rosters, probably the vast majority of us. Because of this the bigger stables have to be pickier about where they send their horses, otherwise, they'll clash with others on their string. This is one negative that affects the larger stables and benefits the smaller stables. The smaller stables can afford to send their horses all over the place and beat on their opponents in any series they wish, while other stables have dedicated horses for specific areas who have not raced in other big name races before that dedicated series. Please be mindful of this when judging 3yo horses next year. Some people have purposely pointed horses for specific series versus other horses who are just sweeping in to pad HOTY records later on in the year--not to say this is wrong, but it is not exactly fair. The second half of the year is when the top three year olds are supposed to take on the older horses. I would hate to set a dangerous precedent of three year olds not running against older until the BC.

I agree that we have expanded rosters. This does offer smaller stables more choice about where they can send their horses in order to avoid clashing with their own stock, while big stables perhaps don't have as much choice in order to avoid clashing. However...avoiding clashes is its own choice. The races you put your horses in are your own choice. If you choose to scratch out of a big race, for example, that's your choice, even if your reasoning behind it is tactically sound. Your sentence "send horses all over the place and beat on their opponents in any series they wish" I think is just a strategy that is employed. You can choose to send horses all over the place, or you can chose to prep in specific areas specifically for one series. Both work. When you mention specific pointing vs. random entries, are you saying that it is a little unfair for horses that haven't specifically prepped for a series to enter that series at all? If so...that basically means only horses who prep for a race should compete in it, and then we have no variety. I don't think we should regulate this. It varies stakes races. For example...I intended to enter Altercation in the Breeders Stakes as a tester against the top turf three year olds he would likely be facing in the Turf Distance Series. Thus, I prepped him for that by racing in the TTC undercards. If I am understanding your logic correctly, and forgive me if I am not, then you are saying that horses who prep and race in the entirety of the CTC (just for example) should be given more weight than horses that are just entered for one race. Is this correct?

Also, for your final sentence...how does this point connect to your paragraph? Do you think that 3yos are currently not being judged as though they can take on older horses? I think they have been in most cases...in cases with a lightly raced 3yo though, I don't think they've been seen as equivalent, but I think that's logical.

2. This point is for sprinter races. There are many, many sprinters who had to run in non-HOTY races like my Swing Dancer or Cavvy's Flying Fashion and so on and so forth. Battlestone Downs provided an outlet for horses to escape the top sprinting colts. I think it bothers me that people are rating HOTY sprint races so high for three year olds when there aren't that many 3yo sprinting HOTY preps to be found and if there were, they were hog-tied by the sprinting males. In these 4 sprinting divisions, I do think non-HOTY should be weighted somewhat as much as those HOTY races, especially for the fillies or turf sprinting males.
There aren't that many 3yo sprinting HOTY preps, something I'm working to change with the in-progress GHF calendar for next year. I think non-HOTY is weighted as much as it should be. Extensive HOTY race experience should always give a horse an edge, though consistent non-HOTY experience should also be given credit. I think this was weighted in the Shining Stakes, for example. Rough Diamond is a consistent HOTY performer and winner, so won. Doubloon Moon beat Swing Dancer, even though Doubloon Moon hadn't won an HOTY race this season while Swing Dancer had. If HOTY sprint races were being weighed as heavily as you are suggesting in this case, then this would not have happened. Is there overemphasis on HOTY prep? Perhaps, but I think it logically makes sense to factor that in heavily for a series race, as the Shining Stakes was. The Shining Stakes was just the example I chose to use by the way, and I mean nothing overly concrete about it. I agree with what you are saying that non-HOTY should be weighted somewhat as much if there's less availability of prep races, like you are saying, but I think extensive HOTY experience should be rewarded in results.

3. It is my opinion that we need more marathon three year old races in the first half of the year. As I looked through the 4 horses in the Breeders' Stakes, the TTC, and the TC, I'm struck by how few horses have run at 12F. While the distance series at BSD is a mix of races, the longest of them is 12F and is a distance that the majority of our 3yo horses have not run. Take the horses in the Breeder's Stakes. Between them, the horse with the most starts at 12F was the winner, but he only had 3 races and was campaigned much harder to catch up to higher graded horses. The rest had 1-2 starts over the 12F distance so technically, none of them are really proficient at 12F. Idk if GHF and BSD can add more to help us out as The Wire's calendar is pretty crowded at the moment, but it is something to think about.
I agree about adding marathon races to the calendar. I know that I am adding some to GHF. I'll go make sure it is an appropriate amount momentarily.

4. This is not my point so much as a point made by Kenny in the cbox that I think is worth discussing. In past years, horses like Infinite Warcry only made 8 starts in a season on his way to a BC victory. I get that we have expanded the racing calendar to 3 racetracks and horses can run close to 24 races a year if run 2x a month, sometimes more. I run my horses 2x a month with a month vacation thrown in(sometimes more) and often don't like when horses aren't raced a lot, however, I do think we need to ponder some things. Horses who take 1-2 month vacations should not be penalized when they come back to the track, particularly juveniles who run the toughest schedules because they need to pad their records (at least on my website and I'm sure on others as well). There are some points in the calendar when distance races are hard to come by for said juveniles anyway.
I also usually run mine twice a month, three times if they're feeling frisky, and they usually get between one an three months off per season. When horses come back and I place them low, it's usually because it's their first start back after a long hiatus (like, three months straight off) with few starts before their break. I agree one month vacations, even two month should not necessarily be penalized if the horse has been racing actively throughout the year. I believe it freshens them up. Totally agree with you on this point.

Should horses be penalized for under racing? Over racing? Should there be limits on how many races juvenile horses can run? Is overpopulation creating the over racing or is it more because we have three tracks to spread our stock over? Would anyone be open to running juvis in less races per year if they have already proven their superiority in HOTY races?
Horses should not be penalized for under racing if under racing is quantified. For example...Incognito has not raced a whole lot this year. I admit that I kind of got worried about it recently and tossed him in the Earth Stakes as a result XD If a horse has only raced three times that season and it's May or something, they should totally be penalized. But if they've raced six times and it's May, not penalized, or even if it's June. As long as they've been consistently racing in some fashion and the breaks are purposeful, I don't think it should be penalized. Over racing, I define that as a horse racing for the third week in a row. If that happens, they won't do well in a race I judge. If a horse has made a ton of starts on the season, they're likely trying to catch up - i.e. Animatia and Altercation for me. Should they be penalized for trying to catch up? I don't think so. As long as they're not racing three weeks in a row (or three times in one month for more than two months), I don't think they should be penalized. Juvenile limits, we used to have this set at 20 I think. So far, my most started juvenile is Celebrity at 15 and my least is Prometheus at 11. Should we instate a limit of 20 or even 18? I would be open to this. I don't think this should be determined based on HOTY superiority...it should just be a set limit for all juveniles.

I think overpopulation has made competition more difficult, so people are racing their horses more in order to be more competitive. Three tracks leads to us having more ponies and more opportunities.

5. The last question brings me to another point... Does anyone think after a certain point, winners of juvi HOTY races should not be allowed to compete against undercard juvis in undercard races? I feel that sometimes people with HOTY winning juvis enter undercards just to take advantage of the weaker field and pad their win record going into the three year old season. Anyone else feel this way?
Absolutely open to this. This is why I'm adding a lot of NW races into GHF's schedule this season. I also like the NW HOTY restriction. Sometimes, though, an HOTY winning juvenile just enters an undercard in order to have races...for example, I want to race Prometheus and Black Thriller only in HOTY races, but then they might not have races for months. I want them to race though XD

Cavallo
I would also like to bring up another point and maybe you said it already, but the amount of upsets. I understand that they can happen, but it is happening with such EXORBITANT frequency that it is EXTREMELY unfair to horses that are good. In real life, for example, California Chrome, is on a freaking roll and yet here for example, Natural Selection, who's been poignant this season, flops the final two legs to upsets and lost on his specialty to the turf, to Altercation (not putting him down Frosty, just saying that from record and experience he was the dark horse in that race). I don't think that it is fair to people who have good horses to constantly be upturned by constant upsets.
I wouldn't say Altercation was the absolute dark horse of the race. He won the TTC undercard and has been performing it well. If Firestorm could beat Natural Selection the second leg (and he had zero HOTY wins on his record, unlike Altercation who had two, and that is a fact and I'm not putting down your colt Ripleykins, I was happy to see him win), then Altercation had his shot. I don't think good horses are being constantly upturned. Earlier in the season, those good horses have been on win streaks...and it's not fun to see the same horses winning all the time. Right now, maybe in the last game month or two, we've been seeing a reversal, and I don't think it's surprising. For example, I fully expect Cyclonaria's good fortunes to turn as judges favor seeing other horses win because she's won with frequency lately. Win streaks come to an end. The timing is most unfortunate. And I will still be upset when those fortunes turn and those horses start losing. But good horses should lose and not constantly win, even if it is an upset beating them. The frequency right now is probably high, but once again I think judges just wanted to see new horses win.

I know that they happen and people need their limelight but there is something severely off in how people are evaluating quality of races....(which ties in to Ripley's point) and the number of upsets....is frustrating...to say the least.
Ripley argues in her previous post that non-HOTY sprinting races should be weighted almost as much as HOTY races due to lower availability of those HOTY sprinting races. I believe you are saying that HOTY-quality races should be weighed more heavily, or if not can you clarify how you believe the quality of races should be determined? Field size? Grade? Because if that is the case, then we may want to mandate listing the field size and grade of the race on horses' race records. Not every judge is going to remember how many horses were in a race or what grade that race was, for example. Doing this could only help. I think the upsets are just a phase. Ponies will return to their winning ways. For example, I remember when Mastermind wasn't winning for Ripley as a three year old and she was frustrated. His fortunes turned shortly thereafter, but there are always rough spots and disappointments.

There has to be more consistency. I know horses cannot win all the time, but when a horse is doing well that HAS to be given credit and consideration, versus treated as a handicap and a penalty.
I think horses are being very consistent. Some place only third, and some place only second XD OK sorry for the joke there, but I think the consistency is fine. I don't think doing well is being treated as a handicap or a penalty. If you could point out a few races where this is occurring, then I can take a look at them and perhaps come around to share your opinion.

I would also like to state that this isn't me attacking any one person or because solely of the Breeder's results. This has been a year long pattern across the board and quite frankly, I'm sick of it. Which has also been why I've been constantly asking for feedback in races that don't make sense. It isn't because I'm bent out of shape, I'm literally trying to figure out what the hell people are looking at while they're judging.
Cavvy, sometimes it comes across that you're bent out of shape. I'm not saying that you are, but sometimes it comes across as that way, and it makes judges feel uncomfortable. I know I've sometimes felt like I'm being attacked. I'm not saying that you are, but that's how I've felt sometimes, and I will be nothing less than honest with you because you're my friend, friends are honest with each other. I've been trying to figure out all season how a seven-time HOTY winner as a juvenile like Melodious could flop so miserably as a three year old. There's no rhyme or reason. I questioned what the hell people were looking at. Then I just tried something new and moved on. It's not worth stressing about, though I was frustrated as all hell and really upset about it. It's a year long pattern that I was annoyed with in game-month April and now I've adapted in game-month August. Took me a while, and sometimes I still get really annoyed, but it happens. People have different perspectives and will look at different things. For example...when Innocent Passion lost her BC race to Sammy's pony, I was annoyed as all hell, but crap happens. I was really really upset, but I accepted it. I think we just need to accept that this is happening, because the moment we add rules to judging and stuff the fun will be taken right out of it and judging will become a stressful chore.

All of our horses are currently just as good at each other in so many cases, at least in the undercards, and people have different perspectives...so a horse may not win when you expect them to. Frustrating frustrating gah FRUSTRATING, but still.

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I have to say I'm not having as much fun this season as I did in past years. And it's not because I'm not winning at a clip that I was previously. There aren't any workouts, people very rarely write articles, weeks are dragging, we have more judging arguments and there is just no consistency to judging 3yos. I've almost pondered giving up the game because it has become terribly frustrating. I really wish I could step down as an admin sometimes because I'm tired of keeping the peace, putting up race weeks and nagging people to get a move on and judge.
I have been putting up race weeks at GHF. You just happened to beat me to the putting up August XD If you don't want to do that, I can take care of it. Don't worry about doing that anymore. As for article writing and workout writing, I just don't have the time to do big workouts and in depth articles. I love it when people write them, but I just don't have the time.

You don't have to nag people if that's what it feels like. You could just ask when they're online if they're judging a race (I know I've been doing that). I don't want judging to feel like a chore to people. Most people are putting off judging because they fear getting yelled at for their results, quite frankly. I'm not saying anybody or any people in particular are doing that, but people fear the repercussions of their results. Not exactly conducive to judging. Do you have any suggestions for changing this perception?

Isakins - CC restated your point, so I'm responding to your post by responding to CC's.

I'm in total agreement with isa on this one. Upsets are needed, and statistically speaking favorites only win races 35% of the time in the real world. We can't have horses with the most wins winning races by default, for the most part (in most cases) it's unrealistic. Since fairness seems to be the main concern here, that logic isn't fair. Not to mention if we ran this place like that horses like my own SmashDashing or All That Jazz, even Frosty's Melodious will never win a race. It's ridiculous to think that way. Because from experience, the game isn't fun when your horses can't seem to catch a win or are doing rather poor. And as isa stated, I play this game for fun,with that said, I am also going to put out there that the moment this game stops being fun for me I'm out. People need to stop getting so defensive and I'm serious. There are some races that I just stay away from because I know that how I judge them will upset someone and I don't enjoy being attacked because someone thought their horse should have won. So, I'm going to blatantly state here: I don't have a problem with how judging currently works and when everyone has a different way of going about judging then it keeps the results varied, you know... like real life.
I don't think upsets are happening all the time. I really don't. And maybe that's just my definition of upset is different than everyone elses. I looked into judging the Breeders' Stakes and got the exact same results as Cruisey did, but I decided not to judge it because I thought I was biased simply because I had judged the last leg. Now I don't know why these "upsets" are happening more often in the 3yo races, but that's just the way it is.
I agree that our field sizes are getting bigger and thus we're getting more out of money finishes, I'm pretty sure I've expressed this point heavily before.
Granted, this isn't real life though, but I understand what you're saying. I agree with your logic on this point. Favorites shouldn't always win...but that doesn't mean they should necessarily lose, like Cavvy is saying. Earlier in the season, horses were absolutely dominating their races, and I think that in an effort to see different results certain horses are losing. Some of these reversals have been good - Call Me Crooked's, for example. And the horses that were winning a lot earlier in the season still aren't doing badly - they're placing second or third for the most part.

Earlier in the season I thought some judging was way off because horses I expected to perform well were not. There was absolutely a favorite reversal earlier in the season. But now...things have stabilized and some favorites are actually catching up. I think races this year are just more unpredictable, and they should be. It makes things more terrifyingly competitive and fun if the expected horse doesn't always win. There are times when I've put that expected horse in first and times when I have not and gotten nervous about it because it was different and unexpected.

Also CC, technically because you already judged one leg you wouldn't be allowed to judge another XD

Renniekins
GHF is considered as the track with the harder races, so why not keep the original rule for GHF that horses are to have plenty of workouts? The Wire is the easier track so it could stick with the once a year or change of owner workout. GHF is incredibly competitive and more workouts will make the fight to win even more exciting over there. Those who didn't want to write all that much or didn't have the time could stick to races on BSD/Wire and only race a handful of horses over there. I'm sure the more competitive members wouldn't mind writing more workouts for GHF.
Nope nope nope don't want to, don't like this idea. I don't want to be restricted from where I can race like that, and I just don't have the time to write workouts for every race like we were at some point.

And people, let's be honest. If we want the game to be realistic we have to accept (hope I don't sound like a hypocrite here) that some horses will SUCK at racing, point blank. Not every horse can be a champion, okay? It's not even fun if every horse is this million dollar earning horse with multiple HOTY. Regardless of their bloodlines, not every horse can be a winner. I wouldn't mind seeing more non G1 horses retire from the track with only less than $40,000 under their belts. There's nothing wrong with an undercard horse, for some stables those horses probably make easy money on the track. If every horse wasn't a winner, we'd honestly appreciate the successful horses more. At the moment there are SO many successful horses that I don't even think I could tell you a bad one, and just because a horse does poorly doesn't mean you delete them. If a race only has one horse entered, for pete's sake just generate a random horse for the site so that the horse can have something to run with and not mess up that member's race schedule. It won't hurt anyone, and if the site had say a group of horses that the staff came up with to race in races where there was only one horse entered, horses wouldn't have to be thrown into higher graded races.
I agree with your first point about not every horse being great, but I disagree with the random pony generation idea. Though I understand why you're suggesting it.

Next on the list, people aren't going to judge if someone forces them to judge. If judging was more appealing and not a headache in some cases people would be happy to judge. If a race doesn't have a judge, guess what could be done? Randomly generate. End of story, that way even without a judge it would be equally judged regardless. So Ripley you wouldn't have to 'nag' anyone anymore and you wouldn't feel as stressed about your position. If people complain about the results from a judgeless race being randomly generated, they'll know to judge next time. I know I don't judge anymore so I especially back this idea.
I actually really like this idea, but the issue is that people entered in the race might nag other people in order to avoid getting their race randomly generated.

Renniekins I think you should just judge races though. When people don't judge, they don't contribute to something that needs to get done every week. I know that it's a headache, but please just judge. I understand your choice, but I wish that you would change it, because we need judges for these races, especially larger ones where nobody can really judge except the same three people.

But I do think everything moves so slowly and I think a deadline needs to be set on race entries and results. Like results should all be posted on the Sunday of each week or something, and like stated earlier if there's no judge, randomly generate the results. If there was an actual timeline for entries to be closed (say Saturday) and results to be posted we'd be able to stick to a strict schedule.

And as for entries, I'd imagine all the forms for the weeks could be posted up during the first week of every month so that everyone has a chance to enter their horses, but they'd have to make sure to enter by the Saturday of the week before.
This fixes the problem I mentioned before. If a deadline is set for results, then people will know to either find a judge or scratch and judge the day before unless they want the race randomly generated. I would be willing to do this. It would solve the time issue and make everything go faster.

Quick note - if I'm just not getting something that you're saying, it would help if you could hunt around for examples and beat me with them so I can understand your point. I don't remember every single race that runs, but I'm trying to comment fairly while still reflecting my opinion.

[Kenren]

I'm pretty neutral on most of this stuff to be honest, we can adjust BSD's schedule in any way that needs done. I'm somewhat happy with the judging and stuff, but I've learned to let it go when horses don't win for the most part - I feel like a lot of people just need to relax and let the game be a game XP

BUT Then mentioned workouts and I just cannot. I would literally not be able to enter any of those races, and I know Frosty for one would be the same. I work Six days a week and most days I don't go home until 5:30 so it's literally not an option for me. I'm too exhausted. Race weeks will drag spectacularly again. Edit: and it's simply not fair to the members who have been here and voted workouts down because we don't have time.

I think everyone, including me, needs to be on top of entering the next week - I think we need to put a time limit in again and enforce it. Like, 24 hours after the last race is judged in the previous week, the next week will run without exception, regardless of who has gotten entries in.

[Kenren]

Also I kind of don't hate that the horses going into the Breeders Stakes didn't have many 12f races to fall back on? Makes it more unpredictable and less like you lose if you don't specifically aim for it... Not that I'm against adding more, but just a thought.

[Cruisey]

I wasn't going to really reply to this but I feel like I'm kinda getting attacked for offering to judge the Breeder's soooo.. No I did not see Altercation as the dark horse, he had as much HoTY experience as pretty much everyone else in the race (while most of those races out of the money, he had the experience nonetheless) and he had proven himself at 12 furlongs already and it was his turn in the spotlight. Like I said in my commentary, there was nothing wrong with any of those horses in the race. Not everyone is going to be on a winning streak all the time. While yes, we do sometimes see this in real life like Cav said with Cali Chrome, but realistically that happens like 1 in 10 horses. 

So, no i don't think Altercation pulled a huge upset and I stated my reasons why. As for the other concerns, I've learned to get over it. I'm very lucky my 3yo's have been doing well for me, so I can't really see a bias of sorts against them since I can't usually judge any 3yo races anyways.. 

But overall I pretty much agree with what CC/Isa said and I'm gonna leave this here before everything blows up in my face :p

[Kenren]

Also also I can get stuff up at bsd, just remind me XP And if you want me on charge of being the bad guy Ripley and cut off and close race weeks I can totally do that. And I'm going to try and judge more. I normally get a hand in the big field that need done anyway.

[Kenren]

Oh, an idea! We should just offer incentives for articles. Furlong extensions and surface supremes and the like. That would get me writing some more often.

[Ripley]

I don't have time to write a massive response at the moment. I think Cav is most frustrated that when she has big names in races and they almost always go down to a horse you wouldn't expect. And I don't even own the horses and I notice this. No one is attacking you Cruisey, she just used that race as an example, but it's one of many for her.. Y'all act so hostile and it makes her curious as to why it's always her horses.

I would like to have scheduled days to close races as Ren suggested, if you don't make the race, tough luck. As much as I hate randomizing, I think after 4 days of not judging, it will be the way to go. Maybe if we did that it would encourage people to judge.

I'm down for furlong extensions/surface supremes for articles. I also would like to boost someone to a mod position to help at BSD and Kenny with adjusting the calendar and posting the races. Also, I do think Ren has a point about randomly generated horses for maiden races where there is no competition after July.

No workouts for specific tracks. I just like more articles. I do think all busy people should start thinking of workouts for next years juveniles because it comes quick and we don't need to be further behind.

More marathon races. More hoty sprinter races. Closure of undercard juvi races at The Wire to horses who have 4+ hoty race wins?

I'm in the process of doing something for my barn that might stir up my interest in the game again.

I'll be on later to hopefully continue a more productive thread.