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Photo Finish Game Rules (revised December 12, 2006) Welcome Getting Started Photo Finish Rules Stables, Big and Small Stable Responsibilities Money Costs/Fees Income New Stables Expanding Established Stables Horse Careers Entries and Racing Year-End Reports Auction and Sales Breeding Contributions Formats Photo Finish FAQ Welcome to Photo Finish, the fastest-growing Thoroughbred racing simulation on the web. We began in 2002 with a handful of players, just 25 horses and a schedule of 50 races. Today, 4 years later, we have almost 90 players in 11 countries on four continents and almost 900 stakes races on our schedule, including the top races in the U.S., Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, France and Hong Kong. Our greatest growth has been in horses -- we now have more than 3,000 horses in play, from foals to 20-year-old broodmares and stallions. Photo Finish is one of the most phenomenally popular and successful games on the internet. And it is Free. We race horses, we breed horses, and we buy and sell horses...but mostly we race them. The game has grown in size, complexity and realism every season since that first one, and we now we have a year-end sale and auction (always a wild and exciting event) and regular breeding season. But we spend most of our time managing our horses from one race to the next. Each racing season in Photo Finish follows a 12-month, January-to-December schedule (though we do not always begin in the real-world month of January). It all starts with the top stakes races at warm-weather U.S. tracks (like Calder and Gulfstream in Florida and Santa Anita in California) and with Australian races at Royal Randwick, Moonee Valley, Warwick Valley and others. After that, for some, it is off to Nad-Al-Sheba in Dubai for the richest purses of the year. Back in the U.S. the top three year olds are sorting themselves out in the major prep races, showing their owners whether they have the stuff to make a run for the roses in the Kentucky Derby in May. In Europe in the spring, there is racing at Longchamp in France and Newmarket in England. June brings the prestigious meets in England -- The Derby at Epsom Downs and Royal Ascot -- and in the States the great meet at Belmont Park in New York. On it goes through the summer on three continents: Saratoga in New York, Woodbine in Canada and Morphetville and Flemington in Australia. October brings some of the biggest races of the year -- The Jockey Club Gold Cup, Prix De L'arc De Triomphe in France and, the climax of the year, the Breeders' Cup Championships, where fortunes and reputations are made and lost. Each season concludes with the rich races at Sha Tin in Hong Kong, giving the top horses one last chance to win one more purse. At the heart of the game, of course, are the horses, and they are both the game's greatest strength and biggest attraction. Every horse in Photo Finish is unique. No two are alike. Each of our 3,000-and-counting horses has a numerical rating for 28 traits, including speed out of the gate; ability to carry weight; ability to deal with traffic; early speed; top speed; stamina; surface likes and dislikes (hard dirt or soft, or turf, or mud); acceleration; running style (stalker, front runner, etc.); courage in a stretch duel; ratability (how well it obeys its jockey); soundness; and even whether it works hard in training sessions -- and much, much more. There are almost an infinite number of combinations for these traits, so each horse is a complex individual and has a distinct personality. It seems strange to say, but ask any Photo Finish owner and he or she will say it is true: Owners of Photo Finish horses have been known to fall in love with their runners, just as real life owners do. So, again, welcome to Photo Finish. We believe we have an exciting and fascinating game that challenges players on several levels. We are absolutely certain that our game is filled with stiff competition, lively debate, cordial players, four or five languages and plenty of fast horses. We hope you will join us. Those wishing to join the game must follow these steps:
Photo Finish Rules These are the rules of Photo Finish. They may be changed or amended as play progresses in order to better fit the game, improve playability or fairness, or make the game easier to maintain or more fun to play. Any suggestions for changes to the rules are welcome. The Racing Steward reserves the right to make changes to these rules at any time for any reason.
Stables, Big and Small Stable Responsibilities As a stable owner, you have various responsibilities, to the Racing Steward, to fellow players and to your own stable -- especially for your own stable. 1. You MUST keep track of all aspects of your stable's operations. It is your stable and your business. Although the Racing Steward will monitor your horse’s records and your stable’s earnings, mistakes do sometimes occur. You WILL be held responsible for the accuracy of your stable's accounts. 2. You MUST enter all your entries on the web site before the weekly deadline. Entries put in after the deadline will be DELETED. The deadline for entries is 8 p.m., each Thursday evening (US Eastern time). Shortly thereafter, the pre-race card showing the entrants in each race is posted on the website. 3. You MUST verify the correctness of the pre-race card. E-mail is not perfect, nor is the Racing Steward. You are responsible for viewing the pre-race card each Thursday or Friday. If there are errors, you must point them out before the races are run on Friday evening (US Eastern time). Any corrections must be sent before noon on Friday (US Eastern time). 4. You must keep your stable active. If you find that you must be inactive for any long period of time (3 weeks or more), you should inform the Racing Steward. Any stable that does not send in either an email stating ‘No entries’ or an e-mail explaining a lengthy period of inactivity at least once every 4 weeks will be deleted, and that stable’s horses disbursed to other players. There will be NO WARNING if this occurs, so please make sure your stable is active. If you send an e-mail to the Racing Steward, you will always receive an answer within 24 hours. If you do not receive an answer, assume your e-mail was not received and send it again. 5. If you sell a horse, you MUST email the Racing Steward with the correct information in the correct format. See Auction and Sales for more information. Money Costs/Fees The purchase price of horses varies, but the minimum bid allowed in the year end auction is $10,000. It is possible to buy a horse for much less, but often the price is much higher. Maintenance on horses is subtracted monthly, and depends on the age/use of the horse. Young horses - foals and yearlings - cost $500 per month maintenance. Horses of racing age (2+) that are not retired cost $1,500 per month maintenance. Horses that have retired from racing and are being bred cost $1000 per month maintenance. Entry fees for races cost 2% of the purse, and will be listed on the racing schedule next to each race. Breeding fees for stallions and broodmares may be set by the stable owning them. Those horses owned by the computer will have their fees listed on the breeding lists when they are put up. Income Stables can make money by racing horses, selling horses and breeding horses. Racing is the easy part. If you have a fast horse, put it where it might win, and you will earn your share of purses. Races take place once each week during the racing season. The purse of each race is distributed as follows: 60% to 1st place, 25% to 2nd place, 10% to 3rd place, and 5% to 4th place. If you wish to make your fortune by selling or breeding horses, then Photo Finish gives you the opportunity to do both. Horses may be sold either in private sales or auctions. The Annual Auction is held each year at the end of the racing season, and it is a major event on the calendar. Any stable may send horses to the auction and receive the bid price, which must be at least $10,000. Stables may post horses for sale at any time on the Forum in the appropriate area for horse sales, and may ask whatever price they wish, there is no minimum. However, when a stable sells a horse privately or on the Forum the owner MUST email the Racing Steward with the sale information in the correct format. No sale is official without this information being e-mailed to the Steward. See Formats for more information. NOTE: As of 2008, there is now an automated sales entry area available. You can access the sales area by logging into your stable, and selecting Manage Sales. In this area you can place horses up for sale either as an auction (to the highest bidder) or Buy It Now (at a fixed price). Each week the Racing Steward processes those sales that have closed, and you do not need to do anythign more. If you arraneg a private sale and do not use the sales system, you will still need to email the Steward with the sale details. Breeding takes place each year at the end of the racing season. Stables may set whatever breeding fees they wish for their own stallions and mares. See the Breeding Section below for more information. New Stables All new stable owners should visit the FAQ section, at least once and perhaps often. There is a great deal of helpful information available there, which has been compiled over the past few seasons. All new stables begin the game with $200,000 in their account. This money is used to purchase horses and pay breeding fees, maintenance on horses, and entry fees. Players must be careful to balance their finances so they have enough money to cover all their expenses. Stables that run low on money may have to sell horses. Players are responsible for keeping their own records. Any errors in the official records kept by the Racing Steward should be pointed out promptly. New stables begin with a small barn of 5 stalls (referred to as "size 1"), and may own up to 5 horses. Those stables who begin the game mid-season will be able to choose from a pool of horses available to all new players. The Racing Steward will send an email listing your stable’s current bank account information and information about any horses you receive. These horses may be raced or sold. A new stable owner may buy a horse anytime he or she has both the money and an empty stall. Expanding Established Stables Stables have a size ranking, that determines how many horses they may own. New stables begin at size 1. Stables may only move up one size ranking at a time, and may only move up at the end of a racing season. The following table shows stable size, number of horses that may be owned, and the cost for moving up to the next size:
To move up to the next stable size will cost the listed percentage of the stable’s year-end bank account balance. Under this system, the more money a stable makes, and the bigger it gets, the more it will have to pay to expand. A stable must spend at least one season at each size, and may not expand until the end of a season. The horses owned is total number of horses: racing horses, foals, and breeding horses. NOTE: Those who do not send a contribution are limited to Stable Size 2 (10 stalls). Expansion beyond this size requires a contribution (See Contributions below). Once a stable has reached the maximum size (Size 5), they may continue to expand by buying extra stalls. This may be done only at the end of each racing season, during the Expansion phase of year-end maintenance. A stable may purchase additional stalls at a cost of 10% of the total bank account balance per stall. Stables of any size may also purchase additional stalls at any time by sending in a contribution. See Contributions for more details. Horse Careers Horses may not race before age 2. Thereafter, horses may race from age 2 to age 9. All horses must retire from racing at age 10 if they have not been retired earlier. Once retired from racing, a horse may be used for breeding until age 20. At age 20 horses are removed from the game. A stable is not required to race its horses. It may purchase horses only to breed them or resell them for a profit. In such case, the stable must inform the Racing Steward in advance that its horses will not be racing. A stable may retire a horse to breeding at any age. Retires horses are reported on the Year End Report. Horses retired to breeding may not be used for racing again, and will be added to the breeding lists. All retirements are processed at the end of the racing season. When a horse is first purchased, whether by sale or auction, the new owner will be sent a copy of that horse's Ability Report, or AR for short. Each AR gives a very general indication of that horse's abilities. For full details on how to read an AR, click here. Retiring Horses Horses may be retired at any age by their owning stable, but only at the end of the racing season. Please note that retiring a horse does NOT remove the horse from your stable, but only changes its status from a Racer to a Breeder. Once a horse is retired, it may not be un-retired. Retirement is permanent, so be careful about choosing whether to retire a horse. If you wish to have the horse removed from your stable, you may donate it to Endless Vista Stud Farm. This is a farm run by the Racing Steward to take unwanted horses from stables and rehabilitate, race, breed or resell them. You will receive no money for donating a horse, but will get a stall freed up for other use. Entries and Racing The entire race schedule for each season is always available on the Races page on this site. Beginning in the 2008 racing season, all entries must be submitted using the entry management system on the web site. You can access this system by going to the Stables page of the web site and logging into your stable. At the top of your stable page will be a link to Manage Entries. Here you may add, edit, or delete entries for the current racing week. If a stable wishes not to enter any of that week’s races, it must send an e-mail stating no entries for that week, otherwise the stable will be marked as a no response. If a stable has no response for four consecutive racing weeks, the stable will be removed from the game and its horses given to other players. If a player will be out of touch for some time, the owner should notify the Racing Steward by e-mail. The deadline for entries is Thursday nights at 8pm ET. Any entries placed into the database after the deadline will be deleted, so please make sure you get your entries in on time. Each Thursday night, the pre-race card for that week’s races is placed on the web site. Stables should look over the pre-race card and report any errors as soon as possible. Races are usually run on Friday evening, and the results usually posted sometime Saturday morning or afternoon on the Results page of the web site. Types of Races Races fall into the following types: Maiden, Starter Allowance, Allowance, Ungraded
Stakes, and Graded Stakes. Maiden races are for horses that have never won a race of any
type. Starter Allowance races are for horses that have won less than three races in their
career of any type. Allowance races and Graded and Ungraded Stakes are open to all horses
regardless of how many wins they have. Three-year old
Triple Crown: Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, Belmont Stakes Note that there are two American 3YO filly triple crowns, both including the Coaching Club American Oaks. It is theoretically possible for a filly to win both Triple Crowns. If any horse wins any of these Triple Crowns, the owning stable will receive a one million dollar bonus. If a filly were to win both Triple Crowns, the owning stable would be awarded two million dollars. The Handicap Triple Crown is for horses aged 3 and up, so it is possible for an older horse to win it more than once. If so, the owning stable will receive one million dollars each time it wins the Triple Crown. Please note: You may not enter more than two horses in the same race. You may not specify more than three races total in the scratch instructions (including the race you initially enter). Any race with less than two entries at closing will be cancelled. Scratch Conditions 6. Scratch if Southern Charm or Sobriety entered (This would scratch the horse from the
race if one of the specified horses entered.) 10. Scratch if sore or injured in Race 1515 (This would scratch the horse from the
current race if, after running in the race listed (usually the last race the horse was
entered in), the horse came up sore or injured.) NOTE: The scratch conditions field on the entries system allows only up to 50 characters for your instructions. If you exceed the length, you will receive an error message. Please be brief and use the examples above. Races With Large Fields Year End Reports After the racing season ends, the end of season wrap-up maintenance begins. At this time, all stable owners MUST submit a Year-End Report for their stable. Failure to submit a report by the deadline will result in the stable being deleted from the game. THIS REPORT IS MANDATORY! The Racing Steward will announce on the Forum when to send your Year-End Report and when the deadline is, so be sure to keep an eye on the Forum. Every Year-End Report must contain vital information about your stable and what you wish to do with it in the near future such as whether you plan to expand, whether you will retire any horses to breeding, and whether you plan to send any horses to the Auction, below. See Formats for complete information on what needs to be in your report. Auction and Sales After the final race of the season, owners prepare for the next important event on the calendar: The Auction. The Auction is conducted on-line much like an e-bay auction. Each Auction usually includes yearlings, 2 year-olds, 3 year-olds, 4 year-olds, older racers as well as stallions and broodmares. Some of the young runners are unraced, and some of them, and some older horses, are veterans. Stables may place any horse in the Auction simply by informing the Racing Steward in their Year End Report. Not that if the horse goes to auction and is not sold, you may take the horse back into your stable, or donate it to Endless Vista Stud Farm. Breeding Homebreds are stallions or mares owned by stables in the game. Every stallion has, and most mares have, a breeding fee attached to their services. The fees are always published, and stables may alter or waive the fees as they wish. "List" stallions and mares are not owned by any stable and their use is restricted. List stallions and mares, and their breeding fees, appear on the seasonal roster of available sires and dams, linked on the Horses page. List horses are available only as free breeds to those stables that have sent contributions. See Contributions, below. Every stable can select the horses it wishes to breed. Obviously, broodmares, whether homebreds or on the "List", may only have one foal per season. Homebred stallions are limited to 15 bookings per year. "List" stallions are limited to 3 bookings per year. The order of breeding is done by random drawing each season. The stables are assigned a breeding order at random by the Racing Steward, and all pairings received are processed in that order. The only pairings that are not part of this random drawing are free breedings gained through contributions. Those contributing to the game will have their free pairing(s) processed before regular pairings, in the order in which contributions were received. All stables with eligible horses to be bred that season must include this information as part of its Year-End Report. See Year-End Report for more details. These horses will be added to the breeding lists. The Racing Steward will set a deadline for breeding reservations, and all pairings must be sent in email to the Racing Steward before that deadline. Breeding reservation emails must include: stable names of sire and dam, name and age of sire and dam, and any sale arrangements of the foal. Any reservations received after the deadline will not be recorded, and that pairing will not take place. Once all pairings are received, stable accounts will be updated to record exchanges of breeding fees, and a new crop of foals will be generated. All newly created foals by default come under the ownership of the stable owning the foal’s dam, unless prior arrangements have been made to sell the new foal to the stable owning the sire. Such prior arrangements must have been included in the email with the breeding reservation. New foals may not be sold at auction until the end of the next racing season, at the year-end auction. Foals may be placed up for private sale, however, on the Forum at any time. Endless Vista Stud Farm Contributions While players are not required to contribute to the game, there are certain restrictions and benefits involved. Donations from a stable will enable it to grow. Those who make no donations to the game will be restricted to Stable Size 2 (10 stalls). Expansion beyond Size 2 requires a donation. The first $25 contributed by a stable owner will allow him or her to expand beyond Size 2, PLUS give them either a) one extra stable stall, or b) one free breeding during the next breeding season. For each $25 or portion thereof contributed beyond the first $25, a stable will receive another one free stall OR one free breeding. Contributions may be made through Paypal to lbrown@aerth.org or mailed to: Laurie Brown, 3904 Whispering Ln, Roanoke, VA 24014. All money contributed goes towards paying internet access, server maintenance, domain fees, hardware costs, and my time for keeping this game running. There is no limit to how many stalls or free breeds a stable may acquire through contributions, so theoretically there is no limit to how big your stable can grow. Formats Entries As of the 2008 racing season, all entries must be submitted using the online Entries system. (See above) If for some reason you are unable to use the entries system online, please let the Steward know and she will help you. The date and time that all entries are submitted is tracked in the database. Any entry submitted after the weekly deadline of Thursday by 8pm ET will be deleted. Sales As of the 2008 racing season, sales are processed using the online sales system. If you sell a horse on the sales system, you do not need to do anything more. The Racing Steward will process the sale automatically at the end of the week after race results for that week have been posted. You DO, however, have the responsibility of sending any sold horse's AR to its new owner. Please do this as soon as you know your horse has sold. If you sell a horse as a private sale or part of a trade or other transaction not using the sales system, the sale must be reported manually to the Steward by the SELLING stable. Sales reported by the buying stable will NOT be processed. Sales with missing or incorrect information will NOT be processed. All horse sales MUST contain ALL of the following information: 1. The selling Stable Name. Remember that a horse that is sold may not race for its new owner until the horse appears on the new owner's Stable page. All sales are processed once each week, regardless of date the sale is agreed upon.
Sales are processed each week following the posting of race results, usually on Sunday or
Monday of that week. Sales for each week are processed up to the race date of that week,
Saturday. Any sales received after Saturday will be processed on the following week. 1. Your stable name For each horse to be retired: Horse name, ID number, Age, and Gender. 4. Whether your stable will be sending any of its horses to the year end Auction for sale. If yes, all sale horse information must be submitted in the following format: Horse name, Horse ID number, Age, Gender, and Minimum price (if above $10,000). If,
after the auction, the highest bidder on the horse has not met the minimum price you set,
the horse will return to your stable unless you strike some other deal to sell the horse.
If so, let the Steward know. Note that any horses that don't sell in the auction are still yours, and you have the option to keep them if you wish, sell them in private sales, retire and breed them, or donate them to Endless Vista Stud Farm. Please include any instructions on what you want done with any horses that do not sell here. 5. If you have stallions available for breeding, list their names and how much their stud fee will be for this year. NOTE: All ages listed in the Year End Report should be for the current or just ended racing season.
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