• Game Title:  Track King Guide
• Publisher:  
• Genre:  
• Status:  
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1,Introduction
Track King is a free online horse racing stable management game in which you compete against stables managed by other users all over the world.

As a Track King, you take on the role of Stable Manager – or maybe even a Stable Owner! (See Owners Club). You buy, sell and breed horses, manage jockeys and invest the stable’s money in training and veterinary facilities and stud breeding programs. You select Cup and League race entrants from the horses and jockeys in your stable that best suit the conditions and are in top form, plan your tactics before the next race, decide on what training is needed and much, much more.

You can keep yourself continuously updated on the state of your stable by logging on to the Track King website, reading your race results and checking out the latest horses on the transfer market. You can also give your jockeys orders for upcoming races and tell the trainers how the horses will train during the week.

2. Starting a stable
To register to become a Track King, use one of the “Start your own stable” links on the Track King logon page. Remember, you can only manage one stable!.

Firstly, you will need to provide some basic details about yourself, and where you live. It is important to tell you that your details will not be given to anyone else – they’re just to help confirm your identity to the staff of Track King. The more information you supply, the faster we can get you started, and the more chance we have of preventing cheats or false applications. If you don’t provide much personal information, it is likely that you will be contacted by Track King staff to help confirm that you are a genuine applicant.

Next, you will need to choose a Username and password for the game. Your Username is the name that you (as a Manager) will be known by in the game. You can change your username and password at any time when you are registered, but remember – usernames are unique! Once someone has been given a username, nobody else can have it. Regarding passwords, it is good to use passwords that have letters and numbers in them to make it harder for anyone to hack into your account… but make sure it is a password you can remember!

Finally, after giving your personal and logon details, you will be asked to choose a name for the Stable you will manage. Just like with Usernames, the name of your stable can be changed at a later date, but it must be unique. Your Stable Nationality is where you can show national pride, by choosing the country that you want to represent. The flag of this country will be added to your stable, and every horse that is born in your stable will carry this flag. You will also be asked to provide details of the Continent that your stable is currently based in. This will determine the ‘physical’ location of your stable, and the time of the day that racing starts. Your Continent does not have to be the same as your Nationality – for example, it is quite fine to be an Australian stable racing in Europe. (See Continents)

After you have lodged your registration, you can expect an email within 1-48 hours to let you know that your stable has been prepared for you! It’s your time to shine!!

After being accepted into the world of Track King, your account will remain open as long as you login at least once every 50 days, or if you are currently a member of the Owners Club. After approximately 3-4 weeks of inactivity, you’ll receive an automated Email reminding you that you’ll need to return to your stable sometime in order to keep it active. After 50 days of inactivity your stable will be reset, and all your horses placed up for Auction. Of course, you’ll be able to return to Track King in the future, but you’ll have to register again.

3. Finding what you need
There are quite a few different ways to move around in the Track King web site.

There is a ‘Main Menu’, which appears at the top of the page, just below the Logo…..you know, the menu that you used to get to this page! This menu gives you quick access to:

* Home, where you can see the latest announcements, and racing information in your Continent;
* Stables, which is a shortcut back to your own Stable page;
* Races, which will take you to the next race to jump at your Local Track (See Tracks and Weather);
* Auctions, where you can bid on horses for sale (See Auctions), or purchase stud rights to a stallion (See Breeding);
* Forums, where you can chat with other Track Kings in the online community (See (User Forums);
* Shop, to purchase Owners Club membership and other Track King goodies (See Owners Club); and
* Help, which you used to get here!

When you arrive at a page, you’ll (hopefully!) notice that the menus on the right hand side of your page have changed to give you a whole load of choices about the page you are currently viewing. These choices are broken down into a couple of different mini menus:

* Page Menu, which offers you things you might like to see or do related to the page you are viewing;
* Horses, which will show you the horses that belong to the stable you are viewing. Of course, by default these will be your horses (See Horses);
* Jockeys, showing the jockeys currently under contract to the stable in view (See Jockeys);
* Races, showing the race fixtures for the Class league being viewed (See Race Classes) and/or the individual races on a particular day (See The Race!);
* Forums, giving you access to all of the various Forums in Track King (See (User Forums);
* Owners Club features like Guestbooks, Horse and Jockey summaries, and quick race navigations (See Owners Club);

Also, within each page, every horse, jockey, stable, or other name is a link to get more information about that object. Click away!

Objects are also colour coded in Track King, with all Races in Red, all Horses in green, Stables and Jockeys in blue, and Actions and Ratings in yellow/brown. So just waving your mouse over a link or using the ‘Tab’ key to select it, will hopefully give you a little more information about what sort of object you are looking at.

4. Stable diary
Your stable diary can be accessed from the right-hand Page Menu. It shows a running record of all the actions and events that go on in your stable each day.

This provides a valuable tool to catch up on what has happened since you last visited Track King. The diary shows the latest 50 events by default, but you can use the link at the bottom of the list to view older events (if any exist!). The diary also keeps a record of your activity in the Auctions over the past fortnight, showing you all the bids that you placed or received, and also any times that you were outbid. A canny Track King will use this tool to ensure they stay on top of the latest action!

Your Stable diary is only visible to you – so no other Track Kings can see your secrets of success! It displays the date and time that an event took place, gives you a description of the event, and in some cases provides you a link to the event. Where no link is provided, you might be able to guess what caused the event by looking at the date and time.

Some of the things that might appear in your Stable diary are:

* Entering a race – (See The Race! and Entering a Race)
* Changes to your agistment – (See Agistment and Finances)
* Changes to training – (See Training and Finances)
* Changes to your vet – (See Vet services and Finances)
* Changes to Admin staff – (See Administrative staff and Finances)
* Horse purchases/sales/bidding wars – (See Horse Auctions)
* Horse births/stud – (See Breeding)
* Jockey contract information – (See Jockeys)
* Horse travel arrangements – (See Travelling)

5. Finances
There are two types of finances in Track King – your Stable finances and your Personal finances
Stable finances

You need money to run your stable and to house and train your horses. Each week there is a financial update where the monies owed to you are collected and the monies that you are due to pay debited from your account – all transactions that take place during the week are added to the income/expense account shown and the balance figure is updated accordingly.(See Daily/weekly timetable). So when you look at your stables’ finances, the ‘Carryover balance’ is the amount you started the week with, and all income/expenses listed are then the transactions that will be totalled to create the ‘carryover balance’ for the next week.

The income you receive comes from:

* Purses: Purses are the money that you win from doing well in racing. You receive a fixed purse amount for Class races. On top of that, your share of the race purse depends on your finishing position in the race, the higher the better.
* Sponsorship: Perform well and keep good relations with your sponsors and it will earn you a higher income.
* Facilities: Any unused horse agistment and training facilities can be leased out for public use, earning you income each week. (See Stable Agistment, Administrative staff and Training)
* Horse sales: The total income received from any horse sales (less 8% Auction House fees) during the week.
* Stud fees: By selling your stallions’ services as part of a breeding program, you can earn additional income, again less 8% fees (See Breeding)
* Interest received: You can earn interest each week if your bank balance is above zero, the rate of which is determined by your Administration. (See Administrative staff)

The expenses you may have to pay are split into:

* Manager wages: As stable manager, you’ll receive a weekly wage – with it, you can bet on races to gain prestige for your stable and notoriety for yourself! (See Betting)
* Jockey contracts: Good jockeys come at a price, you’ll need to pay the wages negotiated in their contract at the time of signing them, and then again at the start of each and every week they are racing for you. If you hire an apprentice to race, you will pay a one-off fee for jockey services after the race. (See Jockeys)
* Facilities: This includes the setting up and the maintenance of the stables’ training and veterinary facilities, as well as administrative staff costs. (See Stable Agistment, Administrative staff, Vet services and Training)
* Auctions/studs: Total fees payable for any horse and yearling purchases and any stud breeding undertaken during the week.
* Transport: It costs money to safely transport your jockeys and horses from A to B depending on whether they travelled to another track, region or continent. (See Travelling)
* Race fees : This amount includes any race entry stakes payable as well as race establishment costs if you create a Stakes race. (See Owners Club features)
* Interest payable: You have to pay overdraft interest each week if your bank balance is below zero. Admin staff can help negotiate a lower interest rate. (See Administrative staff)

There’s nothing to keep you from spending your stable’s money even if your balance is zero. As stable manager you have access to a line of credit at the bank, but you’re going to have to pay some heavy interest on this borrowed money. The bank is prepared to allow you free reign on spending until you reach $100,000 debit – but after that things start to get tight. You’ll still be allowed entry into league races, and to hire apprentice jockeys, and to auction your horses, but that’s about the extent of it. You won’t be able to resize your stable facilities, or purchase any new horses, and signing a new jockey contract is right out! Also, and most importantly, your bank will put a stop on any staff drawing a wage from your stables’ funds once a ‘closing balance’ of -$100k has been registered. This means that your vets and trainers will be unpaid! They’re prepared to ride it out for a week due to sheer loyalty to you, but at the start of the second week without pay they will all walk out, leaving you with zero training and vet capacity. The bank will then continue to finance your stable, even if the debt continues to grow, but you’ll be without those valuable stable hands.

Should you grow tired of being broke, your Stable Finances page will offer a “Liquidate stable” link for anyone who has closed the week at -$100k. This process is not reversable! If you enter liquidation, your stable will effectively be reset to a ‘new’ stable, with 4 completely novice horses and minimum sized agistment. You will still be in the same Class as you were before, but you might find it hard to remain competitive!

At the end of every season the sponsors hand out a bonus if your stable has done well enough. Trophies and money are handed out to the top 5 places in each racing Class. How much depends on your place and how high up you are in the league system:
Class     1st                       2nd                      3rd                  4th                    5th
1     $1,200,000     $1,020,000     $840,000     $660,000      $480,000
2     $1,000,000     $850,000        $700,000     $550,000     $400,000
3     $800,000         $680,000        $560,000      $440,000     $320,000
4     $600,000        $510,000         $420,000      $330,000     $240,000
5     $400,000        $340,000        $280,000       $220,000     $160,000
6     $200,000        $170,000         $140,000      $110,000      $80,000
Personal finances

Your personal finances are totally separate to your Stable Finances. This money is your personal money, as a manager of a Stable, to use however you see fit.

As you don’t have a team of Administrative assistants looking after this money, you won’t earn any interest on it – so you may as well spend it! And what better way to spend it than at the track, betting on the horses that you know best?! (See Betting)

Of course, everyone at the local betting agency knows you.

6. Horses
Clearly horses are your stable’s main asset! You must have a minimum of 4 horses in your stable at all times.
Each horse has attributes and skills that determine their overall racing ability, while there are also some additional factors that will affect their performance in different race situations. They are:

* Spirit – A horse’s spirit is an important factor in determining how well the horse and jockey ‘read each other’ during a race. A horse with less spirit is able to be controlled easier and relate better to a jockey than a high-spirited thoroughbred. Spirit also determines how easily your horse gives in to adversity.
* Height – The height of a horse largely determines it’s stride length and physical presence on the racetrack.
* Weight – Some horses weigh more than others, which can affect the performance of the horse on race day. It’s probably a bad idea to put a fat jockey on an underweight horse!
* Gender – Mares and geldings are a little more predictable than stallions, which may outperform sometimes but at others might just cause nightmares for an untalented jockey! Horses in foal (pregnant) are not eligible to race.
* Stride – The physical length of the horse’s stride is an important factor when competing against other horses, particularly in races over distance, after all, the longer the stride the less steps a horse will need to take to get to the finish.
* Medical condition – The medical condition of the horse affects it’s overall abilities to race competitively, and also affects how quickly a horse can recover its’ Physical condition. So make sure your vets get your horse properly prepared for the race, otherwise your horse will certainly underperform, or maybe even be scratched!
* Physical condition – A horse must be in good physical condition to hold up to the vigours of thoroughbred racing. A horse in poor physical condition probably won’t be in winning form, and is more likely to pick up an injury from racing. Physical condition is improved marginally by the vet and more so by some training types, and is reduced by racing, training workouts, and of course racing!
* Gate speed – Gate speed determines a horse’s ability to get a quick jump out of the gate and subsequently make quick decisions and change direction during the race.
* Acceleration – The acceleration of the horse describes how well it can accelerate! Simple as that! Good reactions need good physical skills to complement them.
* Muscle tone – One of the most important characteristics, muscle tone helps determine the horses’ staying power in a race. A horse with poor muscle tone is likely to tire more quickly.
* Stamina – A horse with bad stamina may not be able to maintain its speed and abilities over the length of the race. Stamina becomes more important over longer race distances and on tracks with heavier conditions.
* Heart – A fit and healthy horse needs a fit and healthy heart – heart and stamina help determine how long a horse can keep going. Heart also has a ‘mystical’ quality for some, with suggestions that it provides an extra ability to beat the odds.
* Racing styles are a somewhat rare specialty skill determined at birth, sometimes inherited from a parent, or sometimes a quirk of nature. The racing style of a horse sometimes affects it’s performance during a race:
o Early Sprinter – Slightly faster over the first quarter, but these horses tend to tire more quickly in bad track conditions, unless they have extensive experience.
o Fast Finisher – Slightly faster over the final quarter, but a tendency to tire quickly in bad track conditions.
o Mud-lark – Loves to run on a wet track – the wetter the better! Dry tracks are a turn-off though, and the horse may underperform.
o Natural Champion – Sometimes called a ‘Stayer’, this horse is born to run the long race.
o Stalker – Prefers to come from a few places back during the final quarter, rather than leading the pack.
o Breakaway – Prefers to be among the first few runners in the second half of the race, rather than being caught back in the pack.
o Unpredictable – This horse can have good or bad patches over the course of a race…it’s hard to know what will happen next.
o Competitive – Loves close-in racing, this horse doesn’t mind tight races and competitive finishes.
o Needs Space – Doesn’t like to be boxed in or racing in tight packs. Prefers the open spaces to run in.

(See The Race!)Aside from racing your horses, you’ll also need to take care of their training needs and their veterinary care to make sure you always get the most out of them. (See Vet services and Training). As you’ll notice, a horses’ week can get very busy! Be sure to keep an eye on the Upcoming Schedule for each of your horses, to make sure that they don’t have any conflicts. Where there is a conflict in schedule, the horse will simply take the earliest thing that you have told it to do and go with it – even if that means missing out on training or missing out on a race, or even missing travel arrangements to another track. Of course, if a horse misses it’s travel, it might not make the next race or get home in time for training etc…..so it can have quite a big flow-on effect. Any Schedule conflicts are highlighted in the horses’ Upcoming Schedule, so they shouldn’t be hard to notice!

It’s also possible to rename your 2yo horses, if you have the urge. The number of credits you have to rename a horse is displayed on the ‘Home’ page, and credits can be bought through the Shop, or are provided free with purchases of Owners Club (See Owners Club). To rename a horse, simply select the 2yo that you want to rename, and then select the Renam a Horse link from the Page Menu. A member of staff from Track King will approve or reject the renaming as appropriate within 24-48 hours at most!

Last of all, the life and death of your horses. Each season, on the first day of the season, horses will be considered as one year older – regardless of their actual date of birth. As a general rule, horses may only race from the age of 3yo up to and including 10yo. After 10yo, stallions may continue to be used for Stud until the age of 12yo. After age 12yo (or age 10yo for geldings or mares), there isn’t really anything useful for your horses to do around your stable. It might break your heart to part with these virtual champions, but in the interest of your stable it should probably be done. You can either organise to give them away, or if you are an Owners Club member you can retire them into the Hall of Fame, so that we can all look back at their stats and achievements. (See Owners Club)

7. Jockeys
Jockeys are the ones responsible for getting the best out of your horse in race. Track King features a form of Artificial Intelligence for the jockeys, allowing them to actually make decisions about how to respond to different situations that they might find themselves in during a race. (See The Race!) It’s fair to say that the horses are just the engine, and the jockeys are the drivers. Apprentices, being the dumbest of all jockeys, should probably be prevented from riding in any races that you really want to excel in!

As you might expect, there are good jockeys and not-as-good jockeys. All of them make decisions to the best of their ability, and sometimes those decisions might be ideal for the horse and race situation. As a general rule, the higher a jockeys’ base salary, the higher his potential to make good choices. It’s up to you, as an astute Stable Manager, to research the jockeys and find out a bit about them. You can check their career stats to get an idea of what type of track and distance they are most experienced at. Also keep an eye out for their riding style, which shows the things that are most important to that jockey. Watching some of their old races to see how they handled different race situations is often handy to see whether you think they might be suitable for your horses. (See Owners Club)

When jockeys use their Artificial Intelligence to make decisions, they consider the following things – although each jockey has their own ideas about which are most important (as shown in their Racing Style).

* Their current width on the track (ie how far from the inside rail);
* Their immediate traffic, both ahead and behind;
* The horses they can see just ahead of them;
* Their current placing;
* Their current speed
* The distance of the race that has elapsed;
* Their ability to handle/direct the horse;
* The amount of energy they think the horse has left;
* Their own personality – aggressive or passive
* Their morale, and their personal assessment of the horse.

Of course, in a race, they jockey does also consider your wishes. You have the opportunity to enter Race Instructions for each of your horses, which will be followed (to a degree!) by every jockey that rides the horse – even apprentices.

To sign a new jockey to your stable, follow the link named ‘Hire a jockey’ from the right-hand Page Menu of any ‘Stable’ page. You will then be able to search the pool of jockeys in Track King, and select from those that would be prepared to race for your Stable (based on the prestige of your stable!), and from there it’s just a matter of picking the one you want and organising a contract. Negotiate carefully – you can only complete one set of jockey negotiations every 24 hours – whether you managed to successfully sign the jockey or not. Keep an eye on the status of negotiations with the jockey to get an idea how far you can drive their wage down! As a general rule, a jockey with more prestige than your stable are more likely to treat you harshly.

While a jockey is signed to your stable, they are not available to race for any other stable. On completion of their contract, they will go On Holiday for an indeterminate period – maybe a day, maybe a week….maybe longer?! When they leave your stable, if they’re inclined to race with you again, they’ll give you an idea of when they intend to return. The better their morale at the termination of the contract, the more likely that they’ll make sure they are back on time! You’ll have to keep an eye on the market to be sure to get the jockey you are after.

Jockeys will only compete in races of their own Class – which means that generally the jockeys available to the “Upper Classes” (sic!) are better than those of the lower. There will be some exceptions – can you find a bargain?! The exception to Jockey Classes are Apprentices. Every track in the world of Track King has a swag of unknown Apprentice jockeys who are just dying to get a ride. They don’t charge much comparatively….but then they don’t have any experience, and only limited ability! If for any reason one of your contracted jockeys can’t make it to a race, an apprentice will step in to ride for you, and will charge you for his services at the end of the day.

Jockeys like to feel good about themselves, and their morale influences how well they will communicate with the horse during a race – and how much attention they pay when you give race instructions for your horse! To keep a jockey feeling good, it’s important to allow them many opportunities to race. It’s also important to give them a good chance at winning. If you keep putting them on the old gray mare that ain’t what she used to be…well….the jockey isn’t likely to stay happy long! Jockey morale will start at a higher level if you don’t drive their wage down at the start of a contract – it costs more but it could well be worth it?

8. Stable agistment
You pay agistment fees each week to house and feed your stable of horses, and pay one-off expenses to make room for more horses (or to remove a stall). Your stable can physically hold up to 30 stalls. Increasing or reducing the capacity of your stables enables you to house and feed more/less horses successfully. It is possible to crowd more horses into your stable than there are stalls, however this is almost certainly going to lead to a massive loss of your horses’ condition. After all, if you want a high-performance horse you’ll need to provide for it in a professional manner!

The costs to maintain the stall and to increase/reduce capacity is determined by your stable’s racing class – the higher your class, the higher the cost to resize and maintain these facilities. Top class horses need top class care!

Any usused stalls in the stable (as determined at Financial updates on Sunday evening) will be leased to the public, earning you income. The amount of stalls you can lease to the public is determined by your stable’s prestige level and the number of administrative assistants on your staff at the time. The better your prestige, the more demand there will be to agist with you. The more administrative assistants you have the better your staff will be able to cope with collecting payments for these services. (See Administrative staff)

9. Administrative staff
Administrative assistants manage the office at your stable, taking care of some of the day-to-day financial aspects of owning a stable. If you have many debts or many funds available, you can hire an administrative assistant to reduce your interest rates, or find the best investment for your bank account. Administrative assistants can be found on the ‘Stable facilities and training’ page.

Administrative assistant functions include:

* increasing interest received for positive bank balance;
* decreasing interest payable for negative bank balance (overdraft);
* affecting capacity and public leasing of agistment stalls;
* affecting capacity and public leasing of training facilities;
* helping with general facilities expenses by getting you the best price;
* reducing travel costs by getting you the cheapest deals;
* keeping up good relations with your sponsors;

You’ll need to pay a one-time fee to hire or fire Administrative assistants. On top of this, they are paid a wage each week – the amount adminsitrative assistants demand to hire/fire, and also for their weekly services and is determined by your racing class level.

10. Training
Training happens once a week for each stable – the day and time of the trainer visit is determined by your racing class. (See Daily/Weekly timetable). The next available training session for your stable is shown on the ‘Stable facilities and training’ page, within the Trainer section.

To train a horse, first you must have Training capacity available. You can do this by hiring a trainer (an hour at a time) to come and work with your stable on the ‘Stable facilities and training’ page. Any training hours that you do not use during the week may potentially be sold on (possibly at a profit!) to the public, with the amount of hours that can be sold depending on the number of Administrative assistants you have employed. (See Administrative assistants)

Once you have training capacity to suit your needs, you can begin to Schedule the training of your horse. Pick a training type for any horses that you want to train, assign a trainer for however many hours that you require, and then apply the training. If this has been successful, a confirmation message will be displayed to tell you when the training will take place, and the training will be entered into the horses’ Upcoming Schedule. Your horse will continue with this training program each week until you change it, unless your horse misses a training session due to a Schedule conflict. Of course, the horse will be busy training from the start of training time, for however many hours you have asked it to train. Make sure that training doesn’t interfere with any other commitments!

Your trainer/s flatly refuses to travel – probably because of how difficult it is to move the training equipment from one location to another?! Whatever the reason, for a training session to happen your horse will need to be located at your stable at the appointed training time. You can double check that everything is OK by looking at the Upcoming Schedule for that horse. Schedule conflicts will be highlighted so you shouldn’t miss any that may appear.

Different training activities will have different outcomes for your horse, but one thing is for certain – it takes time and effort to see the changes in your horse. Practice makes perfect! Trainers often have more trouble training highly skilled horses, so it will take more time with the trainer to see the results of training on your champion thoroughbred than it will with your young unskilled prodigy. No matter the skill of the horse, the longer the horse spends training, the more the horse loses interest. Short sharp training sessions are more effective (hour for hour) than long drawn out sessions…

Following is a quick description of the training types available, and how they affect your horse:

* Beach gallops – A refreshing gallop for the horse on the sand, helps stamina and heart and works off a few pounds too!
* Beach walks – A relaxing walk along the seaside. Sea air is good for the soul and condition, but it’s not really good for the muscles?
* Conditioning – A medium workout used to ‘harden’ a horse. Good for stamina and putting on some muscle weight, and being a medium workout it doesn’t take too much out of the horse.
* Cross country – Some good positive exercise that builds body stats, although it’s fairly taxing. Horses take small steps going over obstacles though…
* Pampering – Sometimes, you just wanna spoil your horse! Massively good for recuperation, but not really the sort of training a true champion needs!
* Short sprints – A medium workout that is aimed at helping your horse reach its’ maximum speed as quickly as possible
* Starting stalls – A whole load of work in the gates might help your horse to explode from the gates. All this standing waiting for the bell is taxing for the heart though!
* Swimming – A really heavy workout that will really get the blood rushing and the muscles aching. It takes a lot out of the horse though
* Time trials – This gives the horse practice over race distance. It’s tiring, but it certainly helps them learn how to handle a race of that length.
* Trackwork – distance – A long run on the track. Not as tiring as swimming but not as effective either.
* Trackwork – speed – Some time spent at the track focussing on maximising a horses’ top speed.
* Walking trail – Time to have a day out with the horse. Has restorative effects for the horse, and some minor impacts on physical stats.

Most importantly though, you’ve had a nice day out at the track and learned something about your horse and jockey. Or even better….maybe you won a big fat race purse!! Good luck!