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Chapter 5 - Entries Once you have Racers in your stable, you are ready to begin entering them into races to earn money for your stable. This is done using the online entry system. Race Calendar The calendar of races for the current PF racing season is on the main web page. To access information on the current season’s races, click the Race Schedule link. This will take you to the main PF race calendar. Depending on your internet connection speed, it could take several moments for this list to load, so please wait until it is finished. Real Time vs. Game Time Time is an important concept in PF, and it’s important to remember that time in PF does not pass at the same rate as that in the real world. The current PF racing season as of the writing of this manual is 2011, while the real world calendar is 2008. Each real week, two game weeks worth of races take place, so a game month of races is two weeks long. This is important to remember as each game month, maintenance fees are take out of your bank account for your horses. At the top of the race calendar page is a link to which racing weeks will be run on which real-time dates, These dates are the racing days for the entire racing season. If racing dates need to be changed for any reason (holidays, emergencies, etc) the changes will be announced on the Forum and the dates updated here. Using The Race Calendar The calendar is color-coded to indicate the status of races. Those in grey are races that have already been run or for which entries have closed. Races that are currently accepting entries are in yellow. Entries for each week close on Thursday night at 8pm ET. After that, the calendar is updated for the next week’s entries. Each race has listed next to it the week number, race number, name of the race, the race grade, age and gender restrictions, the purse, and the entry fee. These terms are described below. Types Of Races There are various types of races in PF. Those familiar with horse racing may find these terms familiar, but this is how they are used and defined in PF. In general races fall into two groups – graded races and ungraded races. Graded races fall into three categories – Grade 1, 2, and 3. Ungraded races fall into four categories – Maiden, Starter Allowance, Allowance, and ungraded stakes. Horses will usually start out in ungraded races until their ability has been determined, then moved on to graded races. Graded races have more prestige, bigger purses, and tougher fields. Horses that don’t have the ability to compete with the best horses in the game generally will race in the lower end races. The order of races from highest end to lowest is: Maiden races: These races are for horses who have never won a race of any kind in their career, regardless of how many they have entered. Starter Allowance: These races are for horses who have never won more than two races of any kind in their career. If a horse has won two races, enters this type of race and wins, it will no longer be eligible for this type of race any more, and must run in Allowance or better afterwards. Allowance: These races are open to all horses. Generally these have lower purses and less competitive fields than stakes races, and horses that run in these races are usually those on their way up the ladder in their careers, or those who have passed their prime and are no longer capable of competing at higher levels. Stakes Races: These races are open to all horses. The purses and competition generally increase from ungraded up through Grade 1. Grade 1 races are the best and toughest races in the world, the highest level of competition in PF. Using The Online Entry System The online race entry system is accessed through your stable login page. Go to the Stables link from the main web page and log in to your stable. One of the links at the top of your stable page is Manage Entries. Click this link to access the entry system. You will be taken to your stable’s entry page. This page will list any entries you have already entered into the system. From here you can edit or delete any existing entries, or add new entries to the list. To add an entry, click Add New Entry. This will take you to the entry form. From the dropdown list, select the horse from your stable that you want to enter into a race. The information for that horse – name, age and gender – will appear in the area below the dropdown. If this information does not appear, there is a problem, and the rest of the entry process will not work. Log out of your stable, and make sure that you are using the main Photo Finish URL of http://www.pfsim.com/, and not some other URL. (There are older, alternate URLs on the web in some places, but they will not function in the entry system.) Always use the main PF URL. If this is not the problem, or you still cannot see your selected horse’s information, email the racing steward for help. . Note: This information will not appear if there are no races that horse may enter that week. Be sure to check the race calendar and make sure that there are races the horse is eligible for before emailing the steward about a problem. Once your horse information appears, the next dropdown lets you select a race for that horse to enter. This list will contain only the races that particular horse is eligible to run in. If a race is not on the list, the horse is not allowed to enter it. The entry system automatically checks wins, age, and gender criteria to make sure the races displayed are only those the horse can run in, and only displays those races for the current racing week. Select the race from the list that you want to enter your horse in, and the information for that race will appear below the dropdown. The last area of the entry form is for scratch instructions for the race. Scratch Instructions Scratch instructions are necessary in the event that you don’t want the horse to run in the race if a certain condition is met. Usually this is for unfavorable track conditions. Horses have three general track preference descriptions – Yes, OK, and No (with Yes! For likes very much, and No! for dislikes very much). If you want your horse not to run if he has a No rating for the track, use "Scratch if No-". If you want your horse not to run if his rating is OK or worse, use "Scratch if OK-". If you want your horse to run regardless of track conditions, keep the default instructions of "None." You have the option to move your horse to another race instead of scratching. When moving a horse to another race due to track conditions, the horse may only be moved to a later race. You may specify up to two alternate races. Use the terms above with "Move to 1234, 1235 if OK-". If you want your horse to not run if all the alternate races are also unfavorable, add the word scratch on the end. "Move to 1234, 1235 if No-, scratch". Because the race card is viewable all week long before entries close, you do not need to specify scratch instructions for any other reason. If a field is too full or there is another horse you want to avoid, you can edit or delete your entries at any time on the Manage Entries screen. Please keep in mind that any editing or deleting must be done before entries close at 8pm ET on Thursday. Race fields will have from 2 to 20 horses in them. If only one horse enters a race, the race is cancelled. If more than 20 are entered, the extra horses will be removed by the Large Fields rules listed in the next chapter.
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(c) Copyright 2007-2008 Laurie J. Brown |
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