Automatic test

The window that turns the lad on or off on a horse. A line of confirmation, the list of the horses concerned, and a button — but what it commands is worth understanding, because it is free work that does itself.

It accepts a selection: twenty horses are set in one go.

What the lad does

The lad puts the horse in automatic test. Every day, one session, and every session raises its obedience — with nothing for you to do, nothing to pay and nothing to watch over.

This goes on until obedience reaches its genetic maximum. There, the game stops of its own accord: there is nothing left to test, and the horse leaves the list of tests in progress.

Obedience is not gained in any other way than by the test. And a disobedient horse loses time at the start and ends up being disqualified — a D in its form figures. Letting the lad work is therefore, barring a particular reason, what should be done for every horse one wants to race. See Being a jockey.

Only on Almina and Bezir

On Chorus, this setting does not exist and the window refuses the operation: obedience is there one of the characteristics that training works on, like the others. So there is no lad to turn on — there is a trainer to put to work. See Being a trainer and Change of world.

It is the jockey who decides

And the jockey alone: the owner and the trainer have no hand on it. That is consistent, obedience being what the jockey puts up with in the race. A horse whose jockey is another player therefore depends on them for this — and it is something to check before handing over a drive.

If you keep the drive of your own horses, it is up to you to turn it on, and the setting is to be found in your jockey's lists: see Jockey — My contracts.

Should it be turned off?

Rarely, and it is the kind of question one asks oneself once. The test costs nothing, does not tire the horse and does not stop it racing or training. There is therefore no reason of thrift to cut it.

Foals born in the game are normally put in test as a matter of course, the day before their birth: a foal arrives already under a lad. A horse you create or buy, on the other hand, may not be — and that is precisely what this window is for. The habit to take: with every horse that comes into your stable, check its lad.