Gallop Racer 2006 – How To Create and Run Races

I’ve had several people express interest in running their own races here on SS, so I thought I would put together a simple tutorial that explains how to set up and run each race to your specifications.

Would you like a copy of Gallop Racer 2006? Please PM me and I’ll direct you how to acquire it!

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Once the game boots up and you hit the start screen, scroll over to “Simulation Mode” and enter that. It should take you to a screen where on the left it says “Race Edit,” “Horse Edit” and “Jockey Edit.” To begin with, let’s go through setting up each horse for the race first, since they’re the ones doing all the work!

Horse Edit

When you enter the Horse Edit screen, you’ll get the list of horses that have been premade. Skip all the way to the end of the selection bar on top to where it says “New Horse” and then select one of the blank spaces to go into the horse edit screen.

On the first screen, you can name your horse, select its gender and its class. Naming and gender are pretty self explanatory – if you have a gelding entered in one of your horses, simply put it as colt as the game doesn’t have an option for this. When you select its class, scroll until you find the “SS” class. We’re using that because, duh, we’re SS!

After you finish with those, tap into the next screen – here’s the meat of the horse! You’ll have to input the horse’s stats, distance, surface loves and its abilities. Let’s start with stats.

Horse Stats

For a horse’s stats, simply refer back to the horse entered in your race and input all of its stats in the appropriate columns. Once these are input, you don’t do anything else with them unless the horse has upped stats in your next race. Then you of course change the new stats in your game and are on your way!

Below your stats, you’ll see “Tf” and “Dt” – those stand for Turf and Dirt, the two basic race surfaces we use. Next to those, you’ll see a symbol and another next to it in parentheses. For our races we use three symbols – the colored triangle, the open circle and the donut symbol (a circle with a smaller circle in it). The meanings of the three symbols are – triangle means fair, circle means good and donut means great. So say a horse “Great Dirt” but “Fair Turf.” You would put the colored triangle in for Turf and the donut for Dirt. It’s simply the horse’s surface preference. For the symbol in parentheses, it will always be the “great” (donut) symbol.

After inputting those, ignore the next line of symbols that says “CW, CCW and Tight.” We don’t bother with those on here, as we do not use a "Cornering" stat in our system.

Distance! Here on SS, we use three simple distance preferences for sprinters, classic distances and marathoners. Simply change both numbers to suit what the horse entered in your show prefers.

Leg type, another big factor for racing. For Leg Type, it determines a horse’s running style – is the horse a frontrunner, a closer or a follower? It should say in the horse’s entry form. Looking at leg type, do you see the yellow triangle? That’s what you’re going to place to determine the horse’s run style. The default when you create a new horse is the triangle to the far right, a front runner. If the horse is a front runner, leave it be. If the horse is a closer, the yellow triangle will go all the way to the left, with an orange triangle, a red triangle and a black triangle in that order behind it. For follower, I put the yellow triangle second to the left, make the two triangles around it orange and the triangle to the far right red. This means the horse’s “kick” will come closer to the end of the race, as pacestalkers tend to do in real life.

Scrolling down to growth, make sure it's at "Normal Growth" and simply change the number to 5. That’s our base here.

Where it says “Interval” change the symbol from a triangle to a donut “great” symbol. After all, all of our horses are awesome and therefore great.

Abilities

Once you input the stats, time to rack up some abilities! Each horse should have two good abilities and one bad – I mean, we’re awesome but we gotta let the other people try to be as cool as us too.

Whatever the horse’s abilities are in the entry form are what you’re going to be inputting into the game. We only use three abilities in our simulations, so that’s all each horse will get.

Horse Appearance

Once you’re done with abilities and stats, click to the next screen and now you get to design the horse itself! Basically, you’re making a digital copy of the Petz horse in Gallop Racer, so just try and make it look as similar as possible. When you click “Appearance,” you’ll get to do just that, along with adjusting the “Neck Height” and “Run Style” if the horse holds its head high or runs with leg lift. Where it says “Body Type,” ignore it. All of our horses have the normal body length.

For the equipment, again, just follow what the entrant has for her horse. Adjust the hood to whichever style you like and in the entrant’s silks – we DO use blinkers now, so please make sure you add those when you're creating the hood. The same goes for shadow roll and bandages, so adjust to your heart’s content!

For uniform, that’s the owner’s silks. If they have a picture, simply copy it in game. If they have a description, just do the best you can.

Once you’re all done, back out with the “Back” button and your horse will be done! Back out again from the “Horse Edit” screen and you’ll be prompted to save. Do so! Don’t want all that hard work to be for nothing!

Jockey Edit

This is completely optional – using a premade jockey or one you design will not affect the outcome of the race. Jockey edit simply asks for gender, skin color and hair color. It’s pretty simple and isn’t as cool as designing your pony.

Race Edit

Here we go, what you wanna see! I will now tell you how to run a race with all those pretty horses you just made!

Select “Program Chart” from the list provided – we don’t need no fancy races. You’ll be given pages upon pages of different races on dirt or turf, at varying distances and with varying “Grade” levels. Since our races are still mostly open, the grade levels on here don’t affect our own races – if the race’s surface and distance fits YOUR race, select it no matter what grade it is. All it honestly affects is the graphic you get as the race loads.

Once you select your race, you have so many options for activities!

Scroll down to “Number.” This changes how many entrants you have in your race. Adjust the number to however many horses were entered and hit “Ok.” Your post positions will now be limited to how many starters you have in your race.

Below that, “Weather” and “Track” simply affect the weather and track conditions. How you want to change that is up to you – I personally imitate the weather outside my window to change things up in many of my races, so it’s not always “Sunny on a fast/firm track.” Experiment! It’s neato.

Now, go back up to race edit. Here’s where you can enter all of those horses you designed. Enter them according to however you choose your post positions – this affects where the horses break from the gate. Age I usually set to "5" to match up with our "Growth Cycle" and for weight/impost, I tend to just adjust it based on a horse's past performances. Horses that have lost a number of races tend to shed weight while winners or close finishes pick up a pound or two. Pick any jockey for the horse and once each horse is entered and has a jockey, back out. Your race is now set.

Click “View Race” and that should take you to the opening screen of the race. Here you can see each horse in its post position, along with the post parade and the horse’s betting status. The favorite of each race will appear first, so feel free to scroll through the parade to check everyone else’s status, then click ok to start the race. You will be taken to the loading screen, then the race itself. How exciting!

The favorite will have a small circle around its number to indicate the horse IS indeed the favorite and just so you know where it is at all times, because apparently that’s important. You can change the camera angle to either sit on one of the horses in jockey mode (you have NO control of the horse however) or you can cycle through camera angles just to watch. The race will run on its own based on the horses’ stats, abilities and surface preferences, so just watch it roll on!

And there you have it! That’s how you set up a horse simulation race in Gallop Racer 2006 and how we run our races here at SS. If you have any questions, please PM me and I’ll be happy to explain!

Happy racing!