3 Questions for Admin, After nearly a "Digi-Decade" of Trying to Find the Answers!

[Orb Farms]

I title this post 3 Questions for Admin, After nearly a "Digi-Decade" of Trying to Find the Answers, because I cannot seem to get enough variables bracketed off, in order to make a confident judgment on my own, EVEN after nearly nine thousand races LOL! My hope is that - without revealing too much - perhaps Admin or one of our living Hall of Famers who have double or even TRIPLE my middling tenure might be able to shed some light on three race variables that I just cannot isolate and figure out!

1. Does the racing code TRULY depict a preference for a horse to run better on a particular surface?
- I ask this with "partial" confidence, but then after racing a few horses who hold a record along the lines of DIRT (4-0-0-1-1), TURF (5-3-2-0-0), and so I BELIEVE the horse is predestined to be a Grass horse......only to throw him or her into a dirt race next, and win by 2 lengths, and then go back to Turf and finish Last with a 90 SR! So, I know this is a bit vague, but all I really ask for is a vague, sort of simple "Yes/No" confirmation...... i.e., [YES, A HORSE IS PREDESTINED TO PREFER TURF, DIRT, NEITHER, OR BOTH] would be a possible answer, and it is the answer I currently believe.....Am I correct?

Take a look at the Gelding INTROVERT. Does anyone think it seems like he prefers DIRT? Or, did he get some VERY bad luck in his Turf races with gate draws and wide runs, and some very GOOD luck in his Turf bouts? His sample is growing, but I STILL could go either way with this example....Yes, there were some BAD luck conditions in multiple turf races where he stunk up the joint......Ortiz, who we ALL know is "GET TO THE RAIL and win, OR FINISH LAST by running wide" doesn't help matters LOL......

2. Does the racing code TRULY depict a preference for a horse to run better on a particular TRACK?
- See Question #1, for a nearly identical reasoning process......I find this question to be Particularly difficult to prove or disprove, due to WAY too many variables for such a specific result, given the VAST number of races posted on daily race cards....

....Taking a breath, I am CONVINCED that DISTANCE is a Factor, a BIG one.....Horses may occasionally pop at "the wrong distance", but there IS a distance "sweet spot" to provide our horses optimal potential success.

3. Finally, is EVERYTHING PREDETERMINED for a horse, or can workouts, over-nominating, nominating in the wrong race, using the wrong adds, etc.... actually "CHANGE" the "Life-span" or "POTENTIAL" of a horse due to what we might deem "mis-handling" by an owner?
- In other words, is Everything spelled out at Birth, or can we as owners contribute to downfalls and upswings? Please do not elaborate, as this is perhaps the "magical question", but I want to know if we can actually "do harm" do a horse? Let me give an example: Let's say a horse is a comfortable 6-7 F horse......and we PUSH at 9 and and 10 furlongs.....Do our owner choices have the potential or propensity to actually HARM the CAREER of that horse? Other than losing a race where a horse does not fit, I do not ask that....It's a little different....I am asking if the above choices actually could REDUCE the "career" potential.....not just the single race?

Thanks, and I respect your right to answer or ignore this post, as I know the mystery is half the fun.....I hope I didn't ask too much or go to far! It's taking me 9,000 races nearly to isolate same surface, jockey, horse condition, Gate Draw, Race, competition, meters, and track.......It's very, very complicated to replicate all required conditions multiple times for ANY horse, and I have gone to painful lengths to even plot and analyze!

[EDIT] The reason I ask - I have come to arrive that GELDING a horse and age changes are NOT the only way to wreck (or augment) a horse's potential or career map..... First off, Fillies have to have consequences in some fashion, and I just feel the racing code for a horse at birth is not in stone.....I believe a few things carry the power and capacity to alter.

My very best

Orb

[Lone Star Stables]

1. Yes
2. No
3. Yes it has a lifespan - that is used up at different rates depending on race placement

[Orb Farms]

Thanks Lone, I appreciate the quick follow up......This helps confirm some things I felt I learned.......

Orb

[Cold Dog Soup]

This the type stuff that made the game enjoyable for me. It wasnt so much about winning as it was trying to "crack" the code in order to breed the perfect horse. A diiferemt facet to the game by itself.

[Trunoble Lodge]

Riddle me this....

Why does a horse run so well at its first start but runs like a broken down hack at its following race/s? Some win an Alw. at their next race start but most fail and rely heavily on favourable draws in subsequent races. They appear to overcome any barrier at their first start i.e. finding extra legs in the last furlong after leading clearly all the way or still finishing on even though caught 3 or 4-wide around the final turn. The next race starts, a horse loses these super-equine abilities and becomes just a mere mortal.

My horse Holy Flip Flops beat a good field comfortably first up today. Its workout times were good but I am sure they were no better than most of the other horses in the race prior to their race start. I have no confidence that he will be as Herculean at his next start. This is where the game becomes frustrating.

N

[Orb Farms]

......Or to pile on, no MATTER what I do under certain "circumstances", Unless I use Relax to try to grab a 4th place finish, I WILL be 4-Wide in a sprint....push, JD, or steady from outer gates....Adding blinks, removing them, adding TT, removing it.....Tried every conceivable variation........ 4 Wide is the reality I KNOW will happen.

I agree, and if workouts actually mattered, we could discern more from them.......but they don't.

Secret Status probably runs the best times on the site, or close to it, as a 2 year old. 1.08.49 I believe....She is a 20k claimer MAYBE.

Orb

[Dragon Tattoo]

I must say i am beginning to get very frustrated as well with these two issues.
I recently bred two horses that workout at 1.08.60 as 2 year olds and both can't win a Maiden claimer at 5 attempts.

[Orb Farms]

Riddle me this....

Why does a horse run so well at its first start but runs like a broken down hack at its following race/s? Some win an Alw. at their next race start but most fail and rely heavily on favourable draws in subsequent races. They appear to overcome any barrier at their first start i.e. finding extra legs in the last furlong after leading clearly all the way or still finishing on even though caught 3 or 4-wide around the final turn. The next race starts, a horse loses these super-equine abilities and becomes just a mere mortal.

My horse Holy Flip Flops beat a good field comfortably first up today. Its workout times were good but I am sure they were no better than most of the other horses in the race prior to their race start. I have no confidence that he will be as Herculean at his next start. This is where the game becomes frustrating.

N

I often have early success, as I rarely keep anything I do not believe capable of winning a full field MSW....... That's my choice.....so typically they come out with good breeding and workouts.

If anyone cares to look at the race careers of:
Nemean Lion
Broadway
Orb Queen
...and even perhaps
Box Office
Kalahari
Constance

......and I have other examples......The "First Few Race Syndrome" occupies somewhere around 2/3 of my stable, and I just have come to expect it as the eventuality, & work through it. Some examples (including the ones above) are more dramatic than others...... White Heart Lane is a horse I have up for auction, and I TRULY believe this one (Good Bloodlines and workouts) to be the most talented and capable horse I own, auction or not, filly or colt...... 11 Races, 4 wins, 5 Show, and all 11 races are ONLY allowance and Stakes races (All of her TCR races are open company, take a look at the fields and you will see that they resemble Stakes Quals)....But, her first 5 races were spectacular.......the last 7 include signs of excellence, but not "spectacular"....I wish I could "un-auction" her, because I believe an Age change will wake her up, and she'll be my best horse again. Wouldn't ANYONE think the same after her first 3-4 races? Only 1-2x in her career did she "lose ground" running around the oval to the finish...... Yes, it's certainly frustrating at times, as Norm and Dragon commented, and I agree.

My main concern is...... When the Generously-Private-Sponsored Breeder's Cup Races come through here in just over a week, will we see fields meshed with hard-working, well-established good horses who have earned their way to $100k or more, alongside horses running their first or second race, still maintaining some of that rightfully coined "Herculean Magic" Norm pointed out in his comments?

I hate to mention an issue without a solution.....But I do not guess we as owners possess enough of the puzzle to manifest a logical solution. So, as I said myself above.....I expect it, in some form or fashion, and I work through it. I hope we can open a dialogue about these 2 areas of the game with all parties, but big, swinging changes have always changed other aspects of the game, and so in my experience, making potential sweeping changes could actually contribute to 5 other things changing.....i.e., the Butterfly Effect". I don't have the solution......but perhaps the owners and programmers can provide potential solutions to lessen the severity of the early career magic???

All's well in Digital racing world, please don't get me wrong.....But it doesn't hurt to raise opinions, and get a feel for other trainers and Admin.....It's a good, healthy way to acquire a "temperature check" from everyone.

My very best,

Orb

[Foggydan Farms]

Here's the take from the lunatic fringe. Or maybe it's a more pragmatic take than most.
I'm going to ask you to let your abstractions go. I'm asking you to banish the words Heart, Morale, Momentum, and whatever the rest are. These are not concepts that can proven either way. I'm not even sure they have any life in coding. Keep in mind, Admin can look at any horse and can see everything about a horse. There has to be something there to see. So let's investigate what might actually be happening.
Let's start with Heart. We determine Heart from the difference between training times and race performance. Here is one thing we know. Training times are at best unreliable, and with that in mind, are very mis-leading. Let's use the example of "good" heart. This an instance where the horse doesn't train extraordinarily well, but comes alive on the track. I'm suggesting that the horse had the talent all along. The training times give the illusion of lesser ability. So not heart, just an illusion. Similarly, very fast training horses are called Morning Glorys when they shit the bed on the track. The fact is they always sucked!! Just another illusion. It's on us if we buy in to the TT's, and then suffer the ensuing disappointment, or elation. If training times were hidden, there would be no such things as Heart or Morning Glorys. It's all about the track, and TT's are shit. Yes, I know they can indicate certain nuances in the abilities of the horse, for instance, distance preferences. But guess what. They are not reliable there either. As further proof of this theory, I would challenge anyone to provide an example of a horse developing Heart mid-career. It just doesn't happen.

Relative to the Norm question about the "new" horse bias. It wouldn't make any sense for this phenomenon to be intentionally programmed into the game. So how is this a thing?
What combination of things in the actual programming could create this? The first timer is strong in 2 areas. First, it is impeccably trained. This might matter because if you believe a horse can be unlocked by hitting it's sweet spot on the track. Perhaps this can also be accomplished in training, and horses are trained like never before with the unlimited training.
The Firster is also fresher than it will ever be. We've gotten the info from Admin that there is an internal clock affecting length of career. So is it really a stretch to assume that the same "clock" can affect performance as well. Further, we've also been told that the level of racing can affect the clock. If Stakes races are the most taxing, then the Firster could be seriously depleted after a sensational performance.
At this point, I would like to interject another related theory. I believe there is a meter we are not privy to. This meter is an overall health meter. It lives in the background, and measures a more complete representation of the horses top potential at any given time. Even though the meters we see could all be 100's, if the horses hidden meter is at 75%, you can see what might happen. I suspect that resting the horse who has run so well first out might be the answer. There might also be a fix or cheat that we don't know about, similar to the 2f FRG train to reset fitness. I have not had enough opportunites to really test this thoroughly. Further, this would explain the cycle phenomenon. Cycles, if they really exist, are not something that make any sense programming into the horses either. I just don't see the creators of the game sitting back and saying "ok, lets make this horse drop off from races 6 thru 10, and then come back to form". So, if you can rule that out, the appearance of cycles could make sense if taken in the context of my scenario above.
Just some food for thought, and the drugs are wearing off. I would love to hear feedback on this stuff.

[Foggydan Farms]

One more thing. We need to keep in mind that the difference between 108.60 and 109 flat only represents about 1 1/2 lengths. This gap can be closed quickly if the horse doesn't corner well, or encounters a "tough trip". Remember, when they train, there's no one else on the track. Still another reason to disregard training times.

[Buddha Farms]

I have previously offered my theory that all horses start off at a 'health' meter of 100. After their first 2 starts this meter drops, never to return to 100. It may drop to 80 or 90 depending on the class of the horse and it might even go back up a couple points after some time off. One thing is for sure it will never get back to the health it possessed during its first 2 starts. This meter probably has the strongest impact of horse's performance in my opinion. I am indifferent to the first timer issue, however I have tried to embrace it and use it when possible.

[Orb Farms]

Definitely all very informative, and I like your logic......The only thing I would underscore is that with workouts, etc......you said the difference between 1.08.60 and 109.10 is about 1 or 1.5 lengths.....I would add to this statement that a Digital Downs Length is about equal to 3.5 Real Racing lengths, if you average results....... 70% of races are by a neck or a head, so I equate a neck to about a 2 length victory, 1 length = about 3.5 length victory, and a 2 length victory is roughly consistent with the frequency of a 7 length victory, etc....

.....The RARE 4 length Digital Downs victory... on down the line thus equates to routing 12-14 length victories in our world........

I am equating frequency here with real thoroughbred win frequency margins....

Orb