Hi guys!

First of all, I hope you're all already enjoying the sale as much as I am. Remember that pages and workouts/articles for juveniles will need to be done before they start racing if you want them to do well! Please note that January Week One will be closing April 12th. Races in Y18 will be closing every Thursday at 9pm EDT.

As we change from Y17 to Y18, here are some things to remember as judges and judgees and members in general:

- Pay attention to your fields! 2yos will almost always lose to anything older, and 3yos will almost always lose to older horses until July Wk 1, when they are considered physically mature enough to compete. Therefore it's generally safer to run in age-specific races unless you can be on to scratch a horse if older horses are entered or are okay with a lower placing.

- 'Class' in 2yo HOTY races don't necessarily guarantee you a leg up in races early-season. So if an undercard winner and a HOTY winner run against each other in January/February, the HOTY winner is not guaranteed that win. They're all on a pretty level playing field early on!

- And I know it's hard given how much they're anticipated, but please remember that well-bred 2yos may not come out of the gate and win everything. They may not win at all at first. And that's okay, because not every horse is going to be a champion juvenile! They'll get their moments, so don't get upset if a create beats your blueblood. They're all starting out on the same playing field.

- Please remember that every horse is capable of running the full range of their preferred distances! For example, we don't say that 9-12 horses are only good at the middle of their range, 10-11 furlongs, so we shouldn't do it to 7-10, 6-9, etc. A 'miler' at 7-10 is fully capable of running against sprinters at 7 furlongs, not just at 8-9 furlongs! We are all guilty of this, but we should make a conscious effort not to use distance against a runner if they're capable of running it.

- Along the same line, 'best distances', aka the distance or distances in a horse's range that the horse seems to win the most at, should not be used against a horse unless the horses are very, very evenly matched! A horse that runs 6-9 is quite capable of winning at 8 furlongs even if it hasn't run that distance before, or even if it has lost a lot at that distance! Best distances should be viewed like leg type, personality, etc. - it can be used for judging only after taking restriction factors (can the horse run the distance/surface/gender/age group etc) and class into account! Of course, every once in a great while there will be a major upset, but we need to be very careful about saying a horse cannot run at a specific distance when it is within its range. A classy horse running at a distance it's unused to or 'bad' at should still win against a horse with little to no class in most cases.

- Just a side note, but horses are NOT to be registered until the year they're born. ie. Y19 horses should not be registered until Y19 actually happens. They should also not be visible on your stable page, as that becomes confusing. If you have them made, they need to be invisible so you can see them and share them if you choose but they cannot be seen by the casual visitor to your site.

Love,
The Staff