End of Season: New Player's Guide

With the upcoming Auction and Breeding Season it may get a little hectic for new players who have never been through this process. So I'm here to shed a little light on this - sometimes confusing - process.

End of Season Report - 2009

This should have already been sent in to Laurie! It includes information such as: Horses being sent to Auction, Retiring Racers, Stallion Stud Fees, and if your stable will be expanding for the upcoming Racing Season.

If you haven't sent it in by now - Shame on You (not to be confused with Shame on Me the 2006 colt by Fool Me Twice or his half brother Shame on You)

End of Year Public Auction - 2009

The Auction - a place where the rich spend all their money and the poor look for a homely face so that they can become the rich.

Remember those End of Year Reports? Well those horses that you decided to send to the Auction... they end up here: In the Auction Ring. Except, in Photo-Finish it is a little different.

A list of every horse going to Auction will soon be made avaliable. It will have a link that will take you to the horses' page (pedigree and race record). There are NO Ability Reports - unless the owner posts them on the Forum or on their stable's website. Many stables will offer this report to prospective buyers.

To the new, young, and smaller stables you will see some horses at the Auction sell for prices in the millions. Every year this happens - the established and veteran stables (or those with money) will have bidding wars on just a few horses. My advice to you: don't get caught in a bidding war with a large conglomerate - they do have more money than you.

Every year there are many horses that will sell for around $10,000 - which is the average min. bid. Do your homework. Don't just look at the unraced yearlings, 2 year olds, or even 3 year olds. There will be that 4 or 5 year old G2/G3 racer that will only get a few bids by those who have taken their time to do research. Amanda's Past Preformances are a good place to start.

Another bit of Unsolicited Advice: Don't spend all your money on one horse. Being a new player (since this is the End of Season: New Player's Guide) you need to build a band of dependable racers - not just one or two with three babies waiting in the wings. All the babies do are eat, sleep, and cost maintenance fees. But before they can race, you must build your funds to make it past the year.

Okay, now you have done your homework. You have a list of 20 or so horses that you would like to see in your stable (even though you only have room for 2 or 3). Now what? You can't be at the end of each horse's bidding time. That's okay... Photo Finish has a proxy system. All you have to do is put your highest bid and it will do the bidding for you. It's like having your own representative for every horse. Note: Do not put a high bid on all twenty horses... remember you only have room for 2 or 3.

The Auction End Times are on three different days - Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Look to the Forum for the offical days and end times (Tentative: August 31 - September 2).

Note: It is the past owner's responsibility to deliver ARs to the new owners.

Breeding Season - 2009/2010

The Breeding Season - it gets bigger and bigger each year (with more and more two year olds making their debuts in overcrowed races). With more stables owning their own broodmares, and stables expanding to well over 50 stalls and purchasing mare rights so that they can breed more than 15+ foals. It is a tempting part of the game for any new player to be apart of. However, I would advise caution to new players about breeding foals.

As stated above, although it is nice to have foal bred/owned by your stable. They won't do much for another two years. Before they earn a dime, they will cost you $12,000 alone in fees, not including the price to breed them. Although that may not seem like much, it can be when a good dependable money maker can make your stable ten times that in a single season. And once that foal becomes a yearling it will cost you more than money - it will cost you a stall.

But, I dare say that most people reading this will not listen to the above. So here goes:

After the Auction it is Breeding Season time. If you donated cash to Laurie then you get a free breeding and can pick from the list stallion and mares (or use a list mare and a PF Stallion).

If you haven't already, start lining up studs from player-owned stallions. Many of the top name stallions are booked months in advance and their avaliablity may be limited. HOWEVER, all is not lost. There are many baragin breeders that go used year by year... some are multi-million dollar winners, BC Winners, or even Eclipse Winners that go unused because of the popularity of a handful of stallions.

Once you have your mare, list or owned, and a stallion lined up you need to come up with a name for your baby-to-be. Make sure that the name hasn't been used, and decide on a colt and filly name (unless it is unisex).

Then Laurie will announce that she is calling for Breeding Reports. You will send your report that will include your stable name, the stallion (fees and owner) your mare (fees and owner if applicable) and the colt and filly names.

Once Laurie has recieved all the breeding pairs she will generate the foals using her program and send out their Ability Reports.

Note: Foals share a stall with their dams - regardless of list or player-owned mare (unless of course you do not own the mare)

And that will do it. After that you will have successfully navigated and survived your first End of Season Madness. And then it will be on to Racing Season... and the new champions will emerge.

Good Luck and Happy Racing!