Horse Racing Fantasy Community

The one segment of our game that truly allows players to go head-to-head against each other in virtual racing is our trainer game. The trainer game allows players to breed past champion horses, name the offspring and race them competitively in tournaments against hundreds of other players for community points. If you're not familiar with community points, please watch the video tutorial on Community Points called "Points, Badges and Awards". The trainer game is the most complete game we offer and requires both luck and skill to breed, train and successfully race your own virtual thoroughbred horses. So, let's get you started on the path to running your own racing stable.

The Shop

From the top navigation in our community, click on the Shop link. From the catalog, you will see a category called Purchasing Horses for Horse Racing Fantasy Trainer Game. Once inside this section, you will see a list of sires and dams ready waiting for your evaluation and selection to create your own virtual horse. Click on the name of the sire or dam you may be interested in breeding. There you will find complete details of the horse you're interested in - everything from their true racing history, preferred racing surface and racing conditions to even a short synopsis on their racing career. Most profiles come with either a video or picture of the champion you may wish to breed. You will also find a summary of every virtual offspring from that sire or dam including their lifetime earnings and access to their complete racing history to evaluate the quality of the offspring they might produce.

Having My Baby

Once you determine the sire and dam that you want to breed, simply select from the list and then choose Add to Cart using either community points or a major credit card. Please note that the prices of each horse are always the same - $2.50 for each full breeding or 25,000 community points. Players may nominate their horses for additional bonuses and jackpots through our Partially-Nominated (PN) and Fully-Nominated (FN) horse eligibility program. Nominating your horse to these programs is not mandatory, but is highly recommended for active players looking to maximizing their potential payouts when winning tournaments. To learn more about these special nominated programs, please read Trainer Game Nominated Horses Benefits & Features found in the Get Help section. After you've chosen a sire and a dam, you'll be asked to name your new baby. If you plan to nominate your horse, you must do so prior to naming that horse. When naming your horse, try to come up with a name that's appropriate for both genders, because part of the fun is not knowing what gender horse you will get. Our name verification tool will instantly let you know that the name you select is available. If so, it will reserve that name throughout the ordering process. Follow the checkout process to complete this part of your transaction. The traits of the offspring are totally random and are based upon the attributes of the selected parents. Keep in mind, just like in real horse racing, our horse racing game will sometimes produce an offspring that can far exceed his parents' ability or, in some cases, never come close to equaling that ability. When choosing the sire and dam, keep in mind what type of horse you're looking for. The traits of your baby will tend to follow the performance traits of his/her parents. For example, if both the sire and the dam you want to breed were both known to perform well on grass or turf surfaces, there is a stronger possibility that your offspring will prefer that type of racing surface, as well. Just like racing surfaces, if the sire and dam prefer racing short distances or sprints, then your offspring will probably be a sprinter. With this said, breeding two turf horses could produce a specacular dirt runner. Just like in real breeding, sometimes the offspring don't follow the direct genes of the parents, and sometimes follow the genes of the grandparents or great-grandparents.

How Many Horses Can I Purchase?

You can purchase as many horses as you want, but you must remember that every horse you purchase has to be maintained. As part of the maintenance program, your stable will be charged 10,000 community points each month for each horse for non VIP members and just 8500 community points for our VIP members that you have in training. Management has the right to either increase or decrease monthly maintenance fees depending on economic conditions and feed and boarding costs. One thing to remember is that you can always do free offers from the Free Points section located in the top navigation menu at the community at any time to instantly obtain thousands, ten thousands or even hundreds of thousands of free community points. So, if you're a little short one month, simply do a couple of offers and keep your horses well-fed and racing.

I Own a Horse - Now What Do I Do?

Once the transaction is complete, your horse will be sent to your game through our communication platform. An in-game message will also appear announcing the arrival of your new thoroughbred. Simply open up your game and click on the Update My Trainer Game Horses. This will trigger the delivery of your new thoroughbred (hopefully a champion) ready to race. With each new breeding, we provide a free performance report, which can be accessed from your Stable page in the community. The performance report, in conjunction with your training, can help determine your horse's overall ability. When we first deliver the horse to your game, your horse is assigned a speed rating number. This number ,generally between 40 and 160, is one of the key factors in determining your horse's overall ability. Great champions in our game are usually born with speed ratings in excess of 130. Horses with initial speed ratings under 90 may not be that competitive in our game. If you bred a horse and his initial speed rating is under 90, you might want to take advantage of our Vet Visit program. The Vet Visit program is a one-time opportunity to essentially completely recalibrate your horse's traits, giving you another shot at getting a champion. When utilizing the Vet Visit program, your horse's color and gender will not change. It is also possible that a Vet Visit can lower your horse's speed rating. Only utilize the Vet Visit program for horses with low speed ratings that would normally be retired immediately. To access your horse, simply click on the Advanced Mode button on the main menu page of the game. There, to start training your horse, you need to set up races under various conditions to begin determining your horse's potential and what racing classification he/she fits. Let's build our first test race and get an understanding of our new horse's potential. From the Race Setup page, select Set Up New Race and then uncheck all boxes on the right side. Choose a distance for testing your horse's ability, a track surface, age - because all horses in the game start out at two years old, I would highly recommend checking out their ability as a 2-year-old. Choose the gender that fits your horse - colts & geldings or fillies & mares, and then choose a racing month and day. What you will be doing is setting up a practice race. These practice races are your way to determine your horse's potential under various racing conditions. The key to the game is for you to discover, just like a trainer in real life would have to, what racing conditions will your horse perform best under. Does he/she like short distances, longer distances, wants to race on the dirt or grass, does he/she like to race in the front or better suited to come from behind as a late closer. All of this and much more will be determined as you run practice races with other horses inside the game. Practice races do not affect your horse's stats. They do not affect your horse's performance. They are only used to determine his racing preferences and his ability. Racing more or less practice races will neither enhance or hurt your horse's performance ability. Every practice race you set up helps you get a better understanding of where your horse will best fit inside the tournaments. Once you've built out a specific criteria, hit the Continue button, select the track from the Track Selection page, choose a track surface (for example, sloppy or fast on a dirt track or soft and firm on a turf track, because track conditions can be just as much a factor in performance ability as the type of surface itself. Now you will be on the Horse Selection page. The Horse Selection page allows you to build races with your horse against any of the community files or purchased horse files that you own. By doing this, you are beginning to measure the type of ability this horse has. All your trainer horses will be inside their own file marked Trainer Game Horses. To build the race, highlight the file that you want to choose horses from, click on the horse's name from the display and hit the select button. You decide how many horses you want your horse to race against in these practice races - you may only want to race your horse by himself. Once you've built a race, hit the Continue button and you'll be taken to the Field of Horses page. Here you can scratch horses, adjust horses' post positions, or continue to the Advanced Field of Horses page where you can watch the race you've created or actually jockey your horse, if you so desire. Again, I reiterate - everything you do with your new horse in private mode does not count against or for your racing stats nor your earnings for your new horse. Think of these races as workouts or private races ony to be used for evaluation purposes. Set up as many races as you want so you can best determine where your horse truly belongs in tournament races. Run races a 2-year-old, 3-year-old, 4-year-old, run them on the dirt, the turf. Run races at small tracks with tight turns or big tracks. Run as many races as you possibly can to maximize your understanding of your horse's ability. The difference between an average trainer and a great trainer is that a great trainer knows more about his horse than the horse knows about him/herself. Successful trainers know what their horse's potential is, making it very easy to identify what racing conditions best suit this horse and where this horse will have the best shot at winning. Take your time evaluating your horse. If you are aVIPmembers, your horse will build af ull past perfomrnace history in your game, helping you to more easily recognize the best racing conditions for your horse.

A few things to remember:

When racing your horse in your game in private mode, the only thing you are doing is evaluating their ability. This has no effect on their performance, no effect on their overall evaluation or earnings in the community. Everything you do with your horse in your game in private mode is never shared with the community.

For evaluation purposes, when racing your horse in private mode, you can move him/her up in age and back in age as often as you want. Doing that does not have any effect on the age of your horse for tournament or community purposes.

Horses have performance cycles, giving you the ability in private mode to create different racing scenarios and provides the ability to evaluate your horse's peak racing cycle as well as racing conditions. Some horses perform best as 2-year-olds or 3-year-olds, while others reach their peak performance later in life. By having complete control in private mode of every aspect of the race setup, as good trainer, you will quickly identify all your horse's strengths and weaknesses including his/her peak racing age.

I practiced and understand my horse's ability. Now what?

Once you've made a full evaluation of your horse's ability, it's time to manage your horse and start looking for tournaments. Simply log into the community and then log into your profile page/account. There you will find a general overview of your stable including earnings by community points, earnings by money, a complete listing of every horse that you own and any active tournaments you have going on. Think of the Stable page as your way to manage your horses during and between trainer tournaments. Also on the Stable page, you will see the price you paid in community points for your horse, his/her current status which will be Retired, Active or In Tournament, his lifetime earnings in both community points and money, and an option, as long as he is not active in a tournament, for you to retire your horse at any time. Horses in our game are allowed to race from 2 to 8 years of age, but during that time, some owners and trainers may feel that their horse is just not qualified enough to compete and it may be more cost-effective to cut their losses and retire the horse. Retiring your horse stops the monthly boarding fee, but also bans your horse from ever racing again. It's a tough decision, but one you'll probably have to make for some of the horses in your stable from time to time. If you click on your horse's name from the Stable page, you'll be taken to the Horse Profile page. There you will have a summary of his/her general attributes, a picture of your horse, any awards or community points he/she has earned from tournaments, his/her pedigree and a status of all tournaments entered. From here, you can click on the tournament name (if your horse is active in the tournament) and get a complete overview of the races he/she has already performed in and what other races are available inside that tournament.

Entering a Tournament

You've become familiar with the Stable page, you've learned what you believe are your horse's best attributes and it's now time to enter your horse in a tournament. Before you proceed, get an overview of tournaments from the "Tournament Entry Guide". After reading the Guide, we suggest you also view the video tutorial on Trainer Tournaments. This is powerful information that can give you an advantage when playing against others.

Tournament Schedule

From the right navigation of the community, you will see the Tournament Schedule. Click on any date (or month) and scroll through and look for tournaments that might work for you and your horse. Or, underneath our calendar from the right navigation, click on the View Upcoming Trainer Tournaments tab. Our program will only display tournaments that horses in your stable are eligible for. Trainer tournaments are also easily identified in the calendar and your eligiblity of those tournaments are also identified through special colored borders and verbiage indicating whether you are eligible for this particular event. It is so important to not only evaluate your horse's ability, but to understand the tournaments that you select. You need to make sure that not only does your horse fit the tournament requirements but that the races inside that tournament fit your horse's running style and preference. In other words, if your horse is a 2-year-old and prefers running short distances or sprints, and there are three 2-year-old tournaments available, look for the one that has races composed mostly of shorter distances or sprints. Don't enter your horse just because he's eligible by age or because you have enough community points. Enter him/her because the race composition of that tournament gives you an advantage and favors your horse. New tournaments are added constantly. Be patient. Sometimes it may be several days or weeks before a tournament forms that perfectly fits your horse. The last thing you want to do is enter your horse in a tournament just because it was the only one available at that time. As in real racing, smart barns and trainers pick their spots. Once you've committed to a tournament, you're not eligible to enter another tournament until you either complete the first tournament or drop out, in which case you would forfeit all tournament fees and tournament race fees.

The aging of your horse is directly associated with the number of tournaments your horse runs in. It has nothing to do with our real world calendar. If your horse doesn't race for three months, he did not get three months older. Every three general trainer tournaments that your horse races in, he/she ages one year. As your horse ages, his/her racing ability will either increase or decrease depending on his peak racing cycle. There are three types of general tournaments in the trainer game. First identified at low risk, medium risk and high risk. The risk we're talking about is the number of community points required to enter and maintain a position throughout the entire trainer tournament. The low-risk events are called "No Fee Trainer Tournaments". General trainer tournaments are classified two ways. The first carries no specific classification and the second is identified as 'restricted' general tournaments. Restricted general tournaments are easily identifiable with a giant red "R" on the tournament description page. Restricted general trainer tournaments allow horses less competitive to find racing opportunities that may be beneficial to them because of specific restrictions associated with that tournament. These restrictions are always associated with one or both of the following: a) hour horse's best speed rating to date in tournaments he has already participated in and tied to a specific racing surface or multiple racing surfaces; b) restricted tournaments can also be restricted to horses that have already participated in at least one trainer game tournament. In other words, horses that have never raced before in any trainer tournament may not be eligible. Each restricted tournament has the specific restriction details associated with the event on the tournament detail page.

No Fee Trainer Tournaments

Here a trainer is required to pay a one-time entry fee at the start of the tournament and will not be required to pay any additional fees as the tournament races proceed.

Flat Fee Trainer Tournaments

Flat fee tournaments are medium risk. Not only will you be required to pay a tournament entry fee, but you are also required to pay a fee for every race you enter in that tournament. The per-race fee is determined at the start of the tournament, so a player can determine their maximum community point exposure for the entire event.

Step Up Tournaments

These are the highest risk, biggest reward tournaments we have. Not only do they require a tournament entry fee, but they also require a fee for each race you enter and that fee increases as the tournament proceeds. As the fee increases, just like the flat fee tournament, so does the prize or purse pool. So, as the tournament unfolds, a player has to constantly evaluate, based on the leader board, whether a tournament he is in is worth continuing or is it time to step out and quit the tournament. Quitting the tournament stops any additional fees, but of course, takes you out of the competition and all fees paid in that tournament have been forfeited to the purse pool.

Tournament will last between one and ten weeks. Their start and end dates are clearly identified from the tournament entry page. The tournament entry page will not only tell you your eligiblity, but will also let you preview all of the races associated with this tournament, giving you a great opportunity to pick your spots and get your horse entered early in the races you believe will help your proceed to the final race. Every tournament has a set number of races and a minimum/maximum number of participants. Each horse entered in the tournament is allowed to race so many times, depending on the tournament, in that event. For example, a tournament may be limited to 100 entries and have 20 races to choose from, but each horse may only enter up to 5 races. The number of races you enter may be less than 5 if you feel you've earned enough fictitious money during the tournament to make it to the final event.

Tournament Scoring Overview

The object of a tournament is to earn as much fictitious money during the general races of that tournament to qualify for the final race. Only a certain predetermined number of horses will make it to the final race, which is always called a Breeders' Cup race. The Breeders' Cup race (or the final race) is the race that determines the distribution of the actual purse (or community points). All the other races in the tournament are for fictitious money (or earnings) to determine the final entrants into the Breeders' Cup event. Trainers or owners choose what races they wish to enter in the tournament, but only the top money earners make it to the final event.

Tournament Race Classifications

There are four classifications of tournament races. Each class is associated with a set purse pool. The purse pool is divided among the leaders in helping to assess earnings during the tournament and deciphering the final horses for the Breeders Cup event for the community points. Part of your strategy is to evaluate your competition during the tournament and not only pick races that best fit your horse's racing style, but also pick the races that can earn you the most money to help you make it to the qualifying or Breeders' Cup event. At the same time, smart trainers will be aware of the competiton they face in the tournament and will strategize when figuring out where other owners will place their horses when trying to purposely avoid specific competition that might be tougher than your horse. Players will adopt various strategies inside a tournament on how to make it to the final or Breeders' Cup event. The only value the purse money has in the tournament races is the value of determining who makes it to the final race. You do not have to be the biggest money earner to make it to the final race or even win the Breeders' Cup championship for the community points. Some trainers will try to pick easier spots looking for less competition, while other players will go for the harder races with the bigger purses, trying to secure a spot in the Breeders' Cup or final race as soon as possible. Even if a tournament allows you to race your horse up to 6 times or more, you might have accumulated enough money after only 1 or 2 races to make it to the Breders' Cup final. If that is the case, there's no reason to enter your horse in any more races during the tournament, especially for Flat Fee or Step Up Tournaments where you risking additional community points. Once you feel you ahve secured your position in a tournmanet and you're going to make it to the finals, there's no longer any reason to race. Save your community points.

Tournament Race Classification and Purse Values

A tournament is composed of a specific number of races. That number can vary for each tournament. Each race is classified in four different categories or grades. Grade 1 offers the highest purse value - $500,000 - and at the same time would attract the toughest horses entered in the tournament. Grade 2 has a purse value of $400,000, which will also attract some of the better horses entered in the tournament. Grade 3 has a purse value of $300,000. Grade 3 races have a tendency to be not as difficult as Grade 1 or 2, but can still attract some tough competition. Ungraded stake races has a $200,000 purse and usually attracts high-quality allowance horses that do not necessarily have the ability to effectively compete against the numeric graded stake races. After you've entered a tournament, you need to closely evaluate each race, including its conditions and your horse's ability under those conditions, as well as the class of the race so you can anticipate the level of competition the race might attract. Some players may go after specifically the Grade 1 events, while other players may try to slip their horses in Ungraded or Grade 3 events trying to earn just enough of the purse to make it to the final race for the community points. Another big separation between the race classificiations is that Grade 1 and Grade 2 will allow more horses or entries into the race, making it tougher for your horse to potentially earn a share of the purse pool. As stated, each race will require a specific number of entries. Once the required number of entries is met the race will be closed and not other horses will be allowed to enter. If there are not enough entries in the race, then the game will automatically insert pool horses to make sure the race meets its minimum number of entrants. Pool horses are randomly selected in accordance with the classification of the race. For example, in a Grade 3 race, pool horses whose skill set is equivalent to Grade 3 horses will be selected. Pool horses can never earn money or qualify for the final race, but can prevent players from earning a specific position and the potential distribution of the purse money for that positon. As far as purse distribution goes, every race in a tournament has the same purse distribution. Finishing first, your horse will earn 50% of the race purse. Second place will earn 25% of the race purse. Third place is 12.5%. Fourth place is 7.5% of the race purse. Fifth place is 5% of the race purse. Purse distribution will occur immediately after the race and will be posted to your horse's record and shown on the tournament leader board page. The tournament leader board page should become part of your strategy when analyzing races and deciding whether to stay in or drop out of a particular tournament. Over time, you'll learn what game strategies can be obtained from reviewing the leader board.

Trainer Tournaments - More Details

Trainer tournaments function a little differently than the jockey and betting tournaments. In our trainer tournaments, you actually are racing your horse(s) that you have bred against others in tournaments for prizes. For a full overview of trainer tournaments, we suggest that you view the video tutorial on Trainer Tournaments. In order to compete in a trainer tournament, a member must first have a horse. Players can purchase horses using cash or commuity points they have earned. Go to the Online Shop and look for the tab called Training Horses. A player would buy a breeding to a sire and a dam. The price of that breeding is always the same, but players have the option to nominate their horses, either partially or fully. Nominating your horse provides a tremendous opportunity to win a large amount of community game points. Just like in real racing, buying breeding to top sires or to top dams does not necessarily mean that your horse will be a top competitor. We use a sophisticated algorithm to cross the sire and dam so no two horses are the same even if bred through the same parents. Once you choose your sire and dam, you'll also be asked to identify a potential name for your horse. You can use our tool to make sure the name you choose does not already exist in our game. The horse will be sent to you in a special file that you can download from your community profile page under the Files tab. This file will contain all your training horses and will be identified as your training horse file from various streams inside the game.

Just like all the horses in our game, the training horses have a performance cycle and contain various racing traits and characteristics. Your job as the trainer will not directly affect the horse's performance. Your job is to actually identify and classify the proper racing conditions under which your horse will best perform. Once those conditions and traits are identified, the player will then go through our tournament schedule and enter their horse in the proper tournaments based on their horse's age and traits.

How do I identify my horse's ability?

A player will play their game in private mode and actually build races with their horse(s) at various ages and conditions - such as track surface, track dimensions, race classification, race distance, etc., and identify where their particular horse is best suited. These races can only be built in private mode and players will build races utilizing either community horses or other horses from files they have purchased and even other horses they have trained to come up with and build out a performance history on their horse and identify his/her area of expertise. Remember that there are so many factors that come into play that it may take you a dozen races to figure out your horse's strengths and weaknesses and where he is best suited to perform. Once you feel comfortable, it is now time to enter a tournament. Go to the community and under the Tournament Calendar and look for tournaments on a day-by-day basis that fit your horse's criteria, or underneath the Tournament Calendar in the right navigation of our community, click on the View Upcoming Trainer Tournaments tab. This section will only display trainer tournaments that your current horses are eligible for. Your only restrictions are a) you have the entry fee necessary to enter that tournament, b) the horse qualifies based on age, and c) some tournaments may be restricted based on your horse's top speed rating during previous trainer tournament races. These speed rating restrictions may or may not be associated with all racing surfaces. In addition, some tournaments may be restricted to horses that have already started in at least one trainer tournament previously. Everything else is based on your correct classification of his ability. When you've identified a tournament, you will simply click and enter that tournament. If you have multiple horses that potentially fit that event, the tournament module will ask you to identify which horse or horses you want entered. (Players may enter multiple horses into the same tournament.) The entry fee (community points) will be deducted for each horse you enter. Some trainer tournaments have a single entry fee due at the time of entry while other trainer tournaments may require multiple fees every time you enter a race associated with that tournament.

Tournaments have a start date. You will be notified once the tournament begins. Each tournament will contain a specific number of races a player may enter his horse in during that tournament. Tournaments will occur over a 3-day to 4-week time period. Players may enter their horse or horses into the designated number of races immediately or may decide to wait and enter their horses on a race-by-race basis. Waiting too long to enter a race may block you from actually participating in that race if the race is over-subscribed. Entering a race too soon may get you an entry, but you might not have entered a race that perfectly fits your horse. Each race you enter comes with a purse distribution depending upon your finish. That purse money only serves a purpose for that particular tournament only. Once all the races in the tournament have been run, the top money winners (between 6 and 20 horses) will run in a final race known as the Breeders' Cup Tournament Race and there the top finishers, depending upon how the tournament is structured, will be rewarded with community points based on the entry pool.

There will be multiple variations of trainer tournaments specifically tied to qualifications. Understanding those variables will help a player in choosing the right event for his horse. Some tournaments even come with weight allowance restrictions. In other words, depending upon how your horse performed during the actual tournament races may be a factor as to whether your horse will be required to carry more or less weight during the final Breeders' Cup Tournament Race.

Tournaments can consist of multiple races that occur over a specific period of time. Players will be limited to how many of those races they can enter. In each tournament, there is a maximum number of races a player can run, but there is no minimum. We expect some players to miss the maximum number of races because the tournament races will fill up. In other words, the maximum is 7 races, but because time has run out or the races filled up before you entered your horse, you may not meet the maximum. The entrants for each race are hidden. This is true for the tournament, as well. Once the tournament begins, the tournament entrants will then be shown along with the daily racing results. Management will use 'filler horses' (otherwise known as pool horses) to make sure all tournament race fields run full. The filler horses(pool horses) cannot earn points and cannot win the tournament, but can actually block horses from taking a higher position in that race. The identity of filler horses will not be divulged until after the race is run. The same filler horses (pool horses) may or may not be used to fill multiple races in the same tournament. Pool horses do keep a racing history for you to review to help you analyze a potential racing strategy.

Your training horses age and you are allowed to race each horse three times during each age. (Non-nominated horses can race until 6 years of age, Partially-Nominated horses can race until 8 years of age, and Fully-Nominated horses can race until 10 years of age. Early users of our game (prior to December 2009) may have horses with no nomination after their name. In this case, general members' horses can race through Age 8 and VIP horses through Age 9. When your horse has reached his maximum racing age, you can used that horse in your game only as a vehicle of measurement for other horses you have in training but not for actual participation in a tournament. If you discover that your horse may not be competitive at a specific age (like a 2-year-old), you may skip an age and enter your horse in a 3-year-old or 4-year-old event, but once you do that, you have given up the right to race that horse in the age group you skipped, essentially making your horse age faster. You may only have a particular horse entered in one training tournament at a time. If at some time during the tournament, you feel that your horse is not necessarily doing well or just can't win or make the final race, then based on his earnings and the earnings of the current leaders, you may drop out of a tournament allowing your horse to become eligible for another tournament that you may find more suitable.

Training horses owned by players, as long as they are of training age and still active will have a number of community points deducted each month (stable fees) that will be applied toward the tournament prizes. It does not matter if the horses are entered in trainer tournament races or not, this deduction will occur. If your horse is in training and you don't have enough points for the monthly horse fee to be deducted, your horse will automatically become ineligible for any other tournaments. If after 7 days you still do not have enough points, your horse will be permanently eliminated from racing in tournaments.

Once you've entered a tournament, it's your responsibility to keep up with the tournament throughout the entire time period that the tournament takes place. Tournaments can last anywhere from 1 week to 4 weeks (maybe more), depending on the tournament parameters. You may not enter a race associated with the tournament until the tournament begins. You must enter the designated race(s) that you are targeting 3 days prior to the race actually being run. The race will automatically close 72 hours before and will immediately display all the entrants and their randomly-generated post positions. Here for the first time, players will have the ability to evaluate their horse's chances against other players' horses as well any pool horses that were used to fill a race.

Between 72 hours and 24 hours prior to a race, you will have the ability to work out your horse (pre-race workout) and assign jockey instructions for your horse. If you do not work out your horse or assign jockey instructions, the computer, when running the race, will ride your ability to the best of his/her ability and at his/her normal racing style. Assigning jockey instructions is only indicated as an intent of how you want your horse to race. Just like in real horse racing, your horse's natural ability and the competition that he's facing may prohibit the jockey instructions you've provided from taking effect. Simply put, if you are in a race with horses that are consistently faster than yours and you assign jockey instructions that say, "go for the front" or "go for the lead", your horse still may not be able to respond because he is simply not able to do so with horses that are much faster early in the race. It's good to evaluate all the racing strategies of all the horses in the race to determine the jockey instructions that best suit your horse that day.

Training instructions are a simulation of working out your horse 7 days prior to the race that is taking place. The impact of your training routine on your horse will depend on your horse's current condition and durability rating. Working out your horse too hard can decrease his chances of performing well in a race. Working out your horse too easily can also affect his performance. Workouts have less than a 2% impact on your horse's anticipated performance for an upcoming race. If you decide to not work out your horse, the computer will treat the horse as if he received a simple light workout 7 days prior to the race.

All horses are eligible to participate in two types of tournaments: General Trainer Tournaments, which are described above, and Insta-Tournaments. Insta-Tournaments are one-race tournament events. Each horse is eligible to enter (but not required) three Insta-Touranments per racing year. Insta-Tournaments also act like claiming races. In other words, when entering an Insta-Tournament, your horse automatically becomes eligible for sale. The sale price of the horse depends on the actual Insta-Tournament race itself and whether your horse is NN, PN or FN classified. Please read our section on Insta-Touranments for more details of how they work.

The Actual Race

When entering races in a tournament, a player never knows how many other horses have actually entered the race, nor who the competitors are until the race closes for entries. Just like in real horse racing, it is your job to anticipate what horses are going to enter a specific race. It is also your job to enter the race by the time the race closes due to the fact that the race has enough entries or it is 72 hours prior to race time. Once the race is run, you can view the results of the race and the tournament leader board or, if you have chosen, the actual race will be delivered to your game for your viewing pleasure so you can watch all of the action unfold in exciting 3D. Notifications will be sent by both email and private message indicating that the race has been run and results posted. After each race, it is your job as the trainer to evaluate the current leader board and make modifications in your strategy as you try to make it to the final race to win the community points.

Breeders' Cup Championship Race - Going For The Community Points

At the end of the regular tournament, the leading money earners during the tournament will be automatically nominated and entered in the Breeders' Cup final race. The number of horses that make it to the final Breeders' Cup race is predetermined at the time of tournament signup. The Breeders' Cup race is the only race in a tournament where the virtual weight carried by the horse is assigned by the computer based on the horse's ability to help create a more level playing field for all the horses that have made it to the final race. These races, otherwise known as handicapped races, have their weight assigned and can vary by as much as 30 pounds, depending on the racing conditions. Once the final race is over, all entrants in the final race will receive emails, in-game messages and private messages inviting them to view the final race in their game and to visit the final tournament standings displaying the community point distribution and badge awards.

Trainer Game Hints

Your horse can only be active in one tournament at a time, and at your discretion, can exit the tournament if you feel he/she is not doing well, cannot win, or another tournament is starting where you feel your horse will have a better chance.

You can have more than one horse in a tournament.

Tournaments consist of races. Making sure there are plenty of races that fit your horse's preference when it comes to racing conditions is important to increase your chances of making it to the final championship race.

You may quit a tournament at any time. Doing so will make your horse immediately eligible for other tournaments and stops the deduction of any other fees associated with the tournament you are quitting. Please note, once you quit a tournament, all tournament fees paid in to that point are forfeited and nonrefundable.

You may retire your horse from racing at any time. Retiring your horse stops the monthly stable fees for each horse and automatically eliminates your horse from further tournament events.

Take advantage of restricted general tournaments. In certain circumstances, your horse(s) may fit the racing conditions perfectly, significantly increasing their opportunity to win that tournament.

We suggest you watch our video tutorial from the Get Help section of the community on the Trainer Game.