THE INTERVIEW

Without a doubt the two most influential and dominant stables at HRP since it begun are Australia Wide and Mb Stables. I decided that rather than rely on the snippets from forums, which can get grayed by personalities, i would interview both stables with a view to getting some insight as to what makes them so successful.
I have started with Mb Stables and he was kind enough to agree, i hope to follow up with Australia Wide but i have yet to agree a fee, OK that bit was a joke, but as these interviews take time i have to rely on the cooperation of my subjects.
Mb Stables was an interesting start for me as like most of the players at HRP it is often hard to watch a stable dominating whilst your own wanders along picking up tidbits. It is easy to draw conclusions and make accusations so i felt this was a chance to really get inside the stable and find out what makes it tick.
Mb Stables comes over as a very determined and driven player, sometimes i felt that i was interviewing a businessman rather than a game player but i guess that is the difference and what makes him so successful. There is a quiet confidence, a singular determination about the way he plays and the way he conducted himself in this interview, he crosses every T and dots every I and you feel there is the utmost consideration put into every word. I got the feeling that this is a man used to success in every aspect of life, someone who doesn’t understand why people fail, someone who would never do something to finish second.
Did i finish this interview feeling that i knew Mb a little better, no. Did i finish this interview feeling that i could compete with him using his insights, no. I finished this interview feeling a level of inadequacy, feeling like i was playing a game and he was running a business. I felt that he will dominate as long as he wants to and that is a scary conclusion to come to.

Well here is the interview, you can draw your own conclusions as i have drawn mine but i do hope you will appreciate the time and effort Mb Stables has made in taking part in this interview. Respect is a big word in my vocabulary and one that i will associate with Mb Stables from now on.
You started in 2009 but were in cruise control until 2011, what was it that made you increase participation between then and 2013 or was that always the plan?

I wouldn’t say cruise control I would say I was sputtering! I always played the game on a budget so I was really at the mercy of the success of my stable. I wasn’t willing to drop in a bunch of money at one time to play with, so I started fairly slowly, and frankly didn’t have a good sense of how to get very good horses quickly. I also wanted to build my stable through breeding rather than through the auction, so that takes a while

You have maintained 50 -70 runners a week since 2013 almost without a break, what is it that keeps your interest and enthusiasm for the game?

I love racing here and still enjoy the thrills of the game. Like most players here, I enjoy racing and look forward to seeing all of my stakes races each weekend, all of my potentially special 2 year olds run, and all important races in general. I keep very organized, so really the management aspect of entering 50ish horses a week isn’t too time consuming. I’ve spoken about this before, but I don’t think many people appreciate how much time you can save just by utilizing stable views, groups, and knowing exactly what you need to do each day with entered horses.

You said that you enjoy watching your stakes horses compete. Do you feel overnights are just a stepping stone to stakes racing or do you still enjoy watching claimers and allowances for what they are?
Also a lot has been said about meet titles. Do you target meet titles or do you just find you have so many horses you cant help but win them.

I still watch nearly all of my races. Certain overnight races with horses I’m very fond of or younger horses I do look forward to like a stakes race, but at the same time they are typically a stepping stone to reach stakes races which is the ultimate goal.

To me there is only one meet I target and it’s the obvious one. Saratoga is the closest main track to me and I’ve visited the track dozens of times. I always want to win the Saratoga meet so that’s one I “target”.

Winning a meet isn’t just about how many horses you own, it’s about how many horses you own who are of quality to win at that meet. And you need to have some of the claiming and maiden types to compete as well. So yes, I often have near the top number of starts at the high meets and some of the mids and lows because I have a lot of high quality horses, but I’m always near the highest percentages as well. Quite a few meets lately I notice that I’m actually not the highest entering stable but find a way to win anyway. I do believe I have more depth than most stables, and I think that shows in the meets.

I get a lot of heat because I win so many of the high meets people don’t consider them a competition. While I feel some of those feelings come from people who are more concerned with the player winning than the system, I understand where they are coming from on whether meet prizes are realistic. I notice quite a few owners who participate more and have more fun with meets, but by the nature of their system more players with a voice aren’t going to even try than those who do. All I ask is if that money is taken away it should be put back into the game in some way that is fair to players and isn’t just a redistribution of money away from me. We’re in a competition here, and that really isn’t in the spirit of competition

Your breeding operation is one of the biggest on the site, what made you use that route to the dominance you enjoy today?

From following real racing I’ve always been fascinated with the breeding aspect to racing. Following successful bloodlines and all the important factors in breeding a champion racehorse. It’s one of the main aspects of HRP that interested me. The ability to breed horses in a more realistic fashion with the gene based system. So my goals here were always to develop the top bloodlines in the game

What is your ultimate goal at HRP?

 I don’t feel I have an “ultimate goal” at HRP. I have many goals. I’d say the most ambitious of them is to breed and run a TC champion because of how difficult it is to do.

What three things would you improve about HRP?

There are so many things I feel HRP can do to improve their game. I made some posts in Tech Support about this, however my position within the game makes it difficult for me to suggest any changes without inevitably being disregarded. Regardless, I would say the 3 most important things HRP should address are Horse ability/development, creation cost, and training difficulty.

The #1 problem our game faces now without a question is the similarity of horses. Changes that HRP has made to development paths appears to have condensed horse ability, and horses start out faster so the difference between ages is even more of an issue. Horses are unable to distinguish themselves, which decreases excitement overall.

Next I believe creation cost is too low. I realize this is a controversial opinion, but I’m not alone here. I completely understand that most players don’t have a lot of money for breeding and wouldn’t like to pay more to breed to their own mares and sires. I was once in those shoes as well. However, I believe the game needs to shift into a healthier market. What percentage of horses bred are really worth $12 after they’re born? Give a horse 1 work and at least 70% of them are instantly worth less than that at auction. It costs more to breed a horse than 98% of races cost to enter in the game. An increased price of breeding will make breeding the highest quality horses more crucial, and will open up a stronger market for sales and claiming.

When you say that a rise in creation costs would benefit the game by strengthening the market for top quality breeders and increasing the worth of individual horses wouldnt it in fact also further narrow the difference between horses if no one can afford to experiment with less well known breeders.

With less horses being created I don’t see how it would narrow the difference in horses I feel it would only contribute to spreading out the horses in ability. And as I said before, I do acknowledge that smaller stables wouldn’t be able to breed as often if creation costs were higher, however the horses that they do breed and do acquire will be worth more individually.

The last aspect of the game that I would suggest needs a look is training difficulty. Horses in our game are extremely consistent time wise. We get confused because of how similar the horses are to each other, but given a straight line trip our horses run within a tick or two from each other even though we have supposed training factors that can affect performance. The non-hidden ones of getting a horse green/green and having a +5 consistency meter are just too easy to obtain. An observant trainer can get 99% of their horses on meters. There needs to be more variability in the game to open up the game especially in horses of lower ability. I don’t believe that having workouts be so clearly indicative of ability is positive for the game either. You should be able to get a clue from workouts, but a simple mile workout can tell you who should win a race 9 times out of 10

How would you improve the training aspect of the game to make it more crucial to success.

First I would make regular workouts much less indicative of race ability. Right now you can work a horse 6 furlongs and know that it will probably race about 1-2 seconds faster than that depending on trip and conditions. It shouldn’t be so time based. It should be effort based, and possibly have workout options for how hard to push a horse. In this way we’d learn more from racing and from works in company.

I’d also make reaching green/green a bit tougher. There should be a difference between 100 and 98 in how fit a horse is.

I’d also make horses less consistent. But this is dependent on ability being spread out a bit more. Great horses should be more consistent, but a claimer shouldn’t run within a tick of the same time each race

What has been your favourite moments at HRP

When Commanding won the KYD I was so thrilled. It really was a case of all my hard work and planning paying off and it felt great. Not a lot of players get to feel that. His win in the Classic also was also a favorite moment of mine, but it all started with that KYD win

It is often hard to be on top, what would you say are the hardest things about being the top player at HRP?

You definitely get more attention when you’re a top earner 🙂 There is always going to be a target on your back. Most of it is all in good fun, but sometimes there is a lot of negativity because nobody enjoys losing.

I often look at the big races you compete in and sometimes race against you. It seems that very often your horses get the best trip. Would you say this part of the game, getting the instructions right,is key or would you say that very often the best horse on the day will win regardless.

 I consider that a great compliment. I strive to always try to put my horses in a position to win. And while it may seem I do all the time, I still make plenty of mistakes. It’s a combination of many things. First, I always want to enter horses who have a chance to win at that level, and have a style that suits the race I’m entering. There definitely are strong biases at particular distances and surfaces and tracks, so I try to pay attention to those the best I can. After that, it’s about understanding your horse, and how their draw and their competition will affect their trip. From racing a lot I’ve developed an understanding of what each instruction will do depending on the horses natural speed and how other horses in the field will shape up. I will look at who I’m running against and study not only the horse’s running lines, but I try to remember how different players in the game like to instruct their horses. Some guys tend to restrain, some guys are more aggressive. I try to match that all together to the position I want to be in. I think the best horse in the race wins at most half the time even when I feel I have the best horse in the race.

What advice would you give a player that has been around a while but struggles to get off a 15% win rate.

Win percentage is all about placement and capitalizing on it. It seems like an oversimplification of things, but the way to increase your win percentage is to make sure that every race you run in is going to give your horse a chance to win. As it stands, the best horse in the race doesn’t win every time, so you also need to try to capitalize when you do find yourself in a race you can win. Always study instructions and how your horses react with them. Try to study the field and predict how the pace will come out. Sometimes you need to be more conservative and sometimes it pays off to be more aggressive. I think additionally many people enter horses knowing they’ve got almost no shot of winning, but they like the horse and want it to run. Sometimes it’s best to just try those types at free tracks. If they have it in them to improve down the line they probably will still improve at the free tracks.

If you had a chance to start again at HRP would you do anything different?

There’s a few things that pop up to me right away, but I’m sure there are many things I would have changed.

I would have never purchased an AG. I purchased a few dozen in the beginning and nothing could run a step.

I would have studied workouts more in the beginning. I almost ignored them for a long time because to me races were more important, and although the game was a bit different back in 2009, it was still very important to see how a horse was working.

And I would have focused more on claiming than breeding until I started competing in stakes races. I try to tell every new player who asks for help that breeding will come. I suggest to them that they should wait until their best racers are done and breed to them, rather than trying to find cheap options to breed now.

Do you think the game will ever whither away if one or two stables start to dominate stakes racing

I think the effect of my stable is always overestimated in this sense. If we consider the last 4 years to be the time where my stable has been “dominant” I would argue that participation is up across the board. Stakes races commonly overfill when previous editions of the race would have half a dozen or less runners. I did the math. There is nearly 93% of races that I don’t win. After considering races I enter multiple races there are at least 80% of races I don’t even run in. While the earnings totals may seem out of reach, there is plenty of game to play I don’t think anything is withering away. I feel that many owners want to be the top stable, and possibly that seems hard to obtain but we’re playing a competitive game.

Categories: FEATURED STORIES, SRF Interviews