If last weekends races were a preview of things to come, then we are in for a pretty awesome Spring Racing Carnival. The Turnbull Stakes and Epsom Handicap will provide us with a looking glass to the main races of the Spring with many competitors heading onwards to the Cups and Plates. It is only fitting that Race Meeting 1 of Star Stable kicks off this weekend.
What is it?
Star Stable is a fantasy game for the racing carnival. Your stable requires 10 horses at all times to be selected and you are given two trades per week (plus two weeks where you can trade three horses).
You also need to select a trainer and jockey each week (you can change this every week).
The aim of the game is to win as much prize money as possible while improving the value of your horses to ‘trade up’ to bigger and better ones as the carnival rolls on.
Your main focus is on the horses with the trainer/jockey combo bringing in very little (5% and 10% of prize money) in the Spring comp.. still that is enough to win or lose a league in my opinion.
Why play?
With close to 100 league entries in Autumn, Jayson P of QLD was the clear winner taking out The Profits league and cashing in on a cool $150 while I rattled home for a top 10 finish with too much faith in Danleigh!
For the Spring comp, we have upped the stakes to $250 cash for the winner of our league (code 371988).
The overall prize for the No.1 ‘Star Stable’ in the overall rankings is a Trip for two to the 2014 Kentucky Derby (prize is provided by the website, not us). Pretty cool right?
Which horses should i pick?
Take those blinkers off and choose horses that are not only going to compete to win this weekend.. but will be going onwards to the million dollar races over the following months. If you have 10 horses in your stable who are all competing this weekend, then you are absolutely doing it wrong even though we have quality fields.
Start by looking at the runners for the weekend at Flemington and Randwick. Note how much each race is worth money wise (most important factor. Then head over to your local bookie website and check the prices on each of the runners. Now that you understand which races you are targeting and which horses are favourite, head on over to Punters Paradise and type in the name of the horse you are interested in. My example in the link is Boban. On the right-hand-side menu, half-way down the page it will tell you which races Boban has been nominated for. You are looking for high value races going forward.
Your stable needs to include horses covering all values. Head on over to your bookie again and look in the Futures/AntePost markets area. Look towards races such as the Guineas and get the names of the top 4-5 horses. You should be able to get a few of these types of horses for between 25k-75k to fill in the slots down the track.
My current setup (which may be altered on the day) includes horses at the following prices.
X2 200k
X1 175K
X1 125K
X1 100k
X3 50k
X2 25k
3 of my runners are not going around this week but are heading towards Guineas and other high priced events. 2 of my runners are heading to the Melbourne Cup & Cox Plate, 1 is heading to the Cox Plate while the other two ‘valueable’ runners I expect to win on the weekend, go up in value and trade them out next weekend heading towards the Caulfield Cup.
You may ask, why no Caulfield Cup horses? I think the field is wide open and the two favourites will most likely be found out this weekend. I also don’t expect them to win so sacrificing the early money from these markets when I am going to pick up runners such as Pussiance De Lune in the next few weeks anyway doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Good luck with your Stable and don’t forget to join us and continue to chat in the banter box at the bottom of our league once you join (Code 371988).
You can sign up to play at www.starstable.com.au.
