Horse Racing Fantasy Community

We published our second monster blue restricted tournament today. This event, that starts July 9 is specifically for horses with a birth speed rating of 87 or less. The tournament is named "Everything I Need".

We will introduce several monster new blue restricted tournaments while we're testing the program and making sure it works properly. Once everything has been tested and we're comfortable, you'll see a consistent range of blue restricted tournaments published under normal tournament entry fee conditions with birth speed ratings ranging between 85 and 120. These tournaments represent somewhat of a class system because horses are restricted by birth speed rating - in theory, the competitors in the tournament should be fairly evenly-matched and competitive. The smart trainer will still have the advantage by simply applying his experience when evaluating his horse when based on distance and surface preferences.

What we have to keep in mind is that these tournaments will not be published with the same frequency general tournaments are. In the beginning, we'll only have 10 to 15 blue restricted tournaments published weekly. They will specifically be focused toward 2 and 3-year-olds. As the demand for these tournaments grows, we'll begin to publish more. The last thing we want to do is dilute the availability of tournaments by adding in a whole new opportunity that can contradict and overlap entries in our normal general tournaments. In order for the new blue restricted tournaments to be successful, players will have to retain their lower speed rating horses when breeding instead of just retiring them instantly. If we don't see these lower speed rating horses being retained, then we won't be able to increase the number of blue restricted tournaments. The reason is simple - we do not want to pull away from general tournaments, which are diluted enough.

Every week we publish a hundred tournaments, but because most trainers are looking for the perfect spot, a lot of these tournaments are only partially filled. Adding a new type of tournament into the mix (birth speed rating restricted) can cause more dilution and actually affect general tournaments, so the introduction has to be done carefully and slowly. Our objective is to create several mega tournaments (blue restricted) so players begin to retain their lower birth speed rating horses, giving us the opportunity to write more blue restricted tournaments.

So, let me be very clear. Once again, this is going to be a slow introduction process. In addition, don't expect a variety of surfaces and distances to be available for these events, especially in the first three to four months. These new tournaments will be limited to sprint distances and milers. They will also be limited to fast surfaces only - no sloppy, no good, no soft turf, no heavy dirt. That level of dilution this early in the game can be extremely non-productive.

The Breeders' Cup final for the new blue restricted tournaments will probably not be handicapped races. In other words, they will be run at scale weights. Though this is not written in stone, this is the way we're thinking and probably how we will test them.

General tournaments will probably end up being for the better horses with birth speed ratings of 120 and above in the long run. Therefore, they will have some advantages over the blue restricted tournaments. When we first started, we had one type of tournament. Now, because of the quantity of horses, we're adding our third type. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but one thing is for certain. We won't really get a good feel of the results, though we're expecting a very positive outcome, for at least two to three months.

- Puddles