UPDATE: Discovering a Donkey

Well, that didn't go as planned.

Remember when I thought maybe the name Southern Drawl for my unraced Z10 genesis was ironic and he would actually be fast?  Well, it turns out this horse is slower than the sweet twang of Forrest Gump saying “I love you, Jenny”.

Even though this one may have been a donkey, below is a blow-by-blow of my discovery process for this horse.

TL;DR here’s the final, ugly outcome:

When to use this discovery process

For a long time, what you’ll see below is how I would discovery most unraced horses in the most efficient manner possible.  The main thing I am trying to uncover is the horse’s distance preference, as this will tell me where to run it and possibly where to downclass it.  I also want to try to get a feel for it’s variance, although this gives me less actionable information. (Check this out for help on understanding these traits!)

However, in breeding 2.0, it is much more predictable where a horse’s distance preference will fall if you know the distance preference of the horse’s parents.  So really the below process would only apply if you are racing an unraced genesis or a horse with unraced or lightly raced parents and you don’t have any idea of its distance preference.

One other note is that I like to do this discovery in a way that I can qualify for a daily tournament as well and make a little money out of it.  In this case, we are trying to qualify for the Maiden, but you can do this in non-Maiden daily tournaments as well and still potentially qualify for those.

Griffin: 1000

For a Griffin race, I generally want to start with a distance on the extreme end of the spectrum, either a 1000/1200 or a 2400/2600.  If I know my horse’s distance preference, I want to run a Griffin in it’s preferred distance so I can get some of that decent size Griff prize pool.

Where I don’t know anything about Southern Drawl’s race traits, I want to quickly be able to check yes or no on him being a sprinter or marathoner.  Thought process here is if I get a flame in this 1000, I most likely do not have a strong marathoner.  If I don’t get a flame, then I do not have a strong sprinter.

Result: 8th, no flame

Not what we wanted to see.  I’d prefer this outcome over a no flame, say 4th or 5th, as maybe the back half finish indicates some marathon DP.  Not ideal, but need to see him run a marathon before passing too much judgement.

It wasn’t a total glue field, but the lowest Z was a Z6 Szabo exclusive, so not like we got out-gunned by a bunch of low Z Naks.  I am fairly confident after just this one race that Southern Drawl is not a sprinter.

Race 2: 2400

Ok, so without the flame in the 1000 Griffin, my hope is that this horse is a marathoner and we see a flame and a podium here.

Result: 8th place, no flame

Aaand we got neither.

These two races probably couldn’t have gone any worse.  Lost it to 3 lower Z horses, so maybe there’s still some hope, but we definitely do not have killer DP either way in this horse.

It’s only one race, so maybe we come back to another sprint or marathon to see if it was a fluke, but it doesn’t look good.

Race 3: 2000

Let’s try a race that does lean marathon a bit, but we’ll go into the mid funnel.  I likely don’t have high DP, but I could have decent BA for a Buterin Genesis and pull a mid flame or I could have some variance and pull a flame in a mid with some win equity.  Impossible to determine variance after just two races.

Result: 3rd place, no flame

Would have really liked a flame here, especially considering a Z22 szabo cross flamed over me and won this race.  We hit a podium, which is nice, but I am not encouraged at all here.

Race 4: 1800

Let’s hit the mid funnel again and see if we get any better results to build on that podium.

Result: 4th, no flame

Yuck…. this horse is a donkey. 

Race 5: 2600

Going to try one more marathon and one more sprint just to see if we can find any magic.  Maybe we got an unlucky field in the first of each of those races.

Result: 6th, no flame

Ok, not a marathoner.

Race 6: 1400

We bricked the 1000, maybe not great DP, but could it lean sprinter a bit…?

Result: 9th, no flame

Narrator: It does not.

Race 7: 2000

Ok, so we don’t have any discernible DP, variance or strong BA.  It’s not looking good at all.  However, there is a tournament going on and so far I have run two races in each funnel.  Mid tends to be the lowest cut line, so let’s run some mids and see if we can sneak into a tourney free roll.

Result: 11th, no flame

Holy shit.

Race 8: 1600

Another mid, just trying to get to 5 races in the funnel and get lucky.

Result: 6th, no flame

……

Race 9: 1600

Ok, this is almost over.  Thank God.

Result: 6th, no flame

Ladies and gentlemen, that will not be enough to qualify!  And I think this torture can finally come to an end!

What next?

Well this horse is an absolute donkey.  Like literally maybe one of the worst genesis horses in the game.  He’s going to the donkey barn, where hopefully he can get me some kind of token allocation.  Or he’ll give out pony rides in Human Park.  Not sure of his ultimate fate, but it sure as hell will not be on the track trying to win races!

I did say I would give out some offspring for this horse, but I feel like in good conscience I can’t give out horses off of this donkey.

However there is a Cross-only tournament coming up!  So I’ll give out one of those tonight!  If you’re reading this within a few hours of publication, feel free to jump onto my Twitter, @donkeykongdad0, and check it out!

Thanks for following along, hopefully seeing some of the discovery strategy was helpful and if we do this again, maybe we will get a better horse!

-DK