Recently an O/T had entered their horse in an An1x race (Allowance Non-Winners of One other than Maiden, Claiming, Optional or Starter). In the horses' previous race, he had just won a Classified Allowance race making him ineligable for these race conditions. I tried to notify the O/T through the message board two days before the races were called in, but the O/T did not scratch their horse so it must have gone unread or maybe they felt that one more weeks rest was in the best interest of the horse, especially after the demanding first race it had.
As O/T's in this SIM game, we must be even more careful than in real life with how we place our horses. Putting an un-raced maiden in any race higher than a MSW (Maiden Special Weight) is dangerous and you certainly aren't doing your haorse any favors if he wins. If in real life the jockey let the horse win in a scenario like this, there would be a big chance that this jockey would never ride for this trainer again. By winning the classified allowance race, the O/T has made the horse ineligable for any class of maiden races (which are good money to be just throwing away). Also, they have made the horse ineligable for the next level of allowance race; An1x (Allowance, Non-Winners of One [race], except [besides] Maiden [Maiden Claiming or Maiden Allowance, which is Maiden Special Weight] Claiming [ of any kind], Optional [an allowance race where the owner has the option to accept claim of the horse for a given claiming price or not to have a claiming price put on the horse and run him as if this were a regular allowance race] or Starter [Allowance races that are a step below conditioned allowance races, these have more specified conditions]).
Understanding the conditions of a race will help you in finding a place where your horse can win. You have to realize; If your horse is capable of winning a Classified Allowance race in it's first start (Classified Allowance = the highest level of allowance race carded by that particular track), then it would be very well suited to win a Maiden Special Weight race at the same track. A lot of times winning a MSW race is tougher than winning the next level of allowance races; An1x . Your horse is eligable to win five allowances races before the competition of a classified allowance race, which usually are prep races for different levels of stakes horses or multiple win horses who have expired their conditioned allowance races, in other words; Top quality horses.
In the next pages i have broken down the meaning of the conditions of the allowance and claiming races given in the SIM. Please understand, that it will take a while before this information will sink in as to where you will be taking full advantage of the many different moves and ploys used by trainers to prep and sometimes even disguise their intentions with a horse, but that's a whole different story.
One last thing; Remember, these are race conditions, not to be confused with Class or levels of Class. They are two different entities. If you look at the different purse structures of all the different tracks (Go to Kentuckiana and click on the URL; Purses) and then read or re-read my article in the SIM Files "Track To Track Class". This will give an understanding of how the two combine to make a written race.
