First off; Take a sheet of regular 8x11 typing paper. Draw a line from about two inches in from the left margin, and two thirds the way across the sheet.
On the line you just drew, start with the ID#. Write it to the left side on top of the line. Underneath it, below the line, write the gender and age of the horse.
Then to the right of the ID#, above the line, write the horses name.
Draw another line, this one about 2-3 typing lines below the name line. Draw the line from about the middle of the page, to about two inches, or one and a half inches, from the right edge of the paper. In the center of that line, draw a verticle line about two inches long, in the middle of the line just drawn. So now you end up with quadrants.
On the above left quad, write the Sire's name. On the right top quad,write the Dam-Sire's name.
Now you're ready to add any information you can find about your horse's pedigree. Find a class rating; for the sire and dam-sire. Also, a turf rating for both. You might add a mud rating, some day we might have a muddy track, in SIM land. Try to find a stamina-rating, for the sire and dam-sire. This will help in judging at what distance your horse will be most effective in running. Try to figure at what age your horse will reach it's full maturity, and do it's best running. Find out how precocious your sire and dam-sire are, in that, are they known to have progeny that can race when they are a 2yo, or will it take till they are 3 almost 4yo, or later.
If you wish, you could even make a Dosage-Profile of your horse, by using the Hypothetical-Mating program at the Del Mar Turf Club website; www.dmtc.com
After you've collected all the information you can about the pedigree of your horse. Draw another line horizontal line right under the above information, separating it from the rest of the page. Use the rest of the page to keep notes on your horses performance on the racetrack. Notes about how often you would like to run your horse, write down the week number of his first win, and subsequent wins. Also, keep notes on how he/she won the race. Does your horse prefer grass or dirt tracks. Anything that you find through expierence of racing your horse, it's very important to find their likes and dis-likes.
Do this for every horse in your stable. Keep these 'rap sheets', in a folder, special for that particular stable. This way you can pull a horses' sheet whenever you wish, and there will be less and less guessing about how to race your horse.
Remember, though, even with all the information that you may acquire about what your horse should like, that information may contradict with what your horse really likes, and has potential for. What I mean is; do you remember the horse Cigar?.... probably the most famous horse to attest to this contradiction. Cigar was bred for, and had a very high turf rating, he did not run anywhere near his expectations on the grass. But, when he was allowed to show his true surface preferrance, a dirt track. How many consecutive stakes victories did Cigar have?
