GALLOP RACER 2001 - I’m writing this FAQ because there aren’t any on the net that I’ve run across and I’m sure there are lots of people with questions in this game. Please don’t copy this as your own or put it on a site without asking for my permission by emailing at feartheclown04@hotmail.com otherwise I could prosecute you and I would to the full extent of the law. - I’ll be adding more to this faq per request of ANYBODY who has enough interest in this game to take the time and ask me for something to be added I. Getting Started II. Racing III. Career mode IV. Breeding V. Tips VI. Thanks I. Getting Started Controls in Gallop Racer 2001 are really simple, basically to control your horse you push up on the D-pad to loosen the reins and encourage your horse to accelerate and push down on the D-pad to tighten your hold on the reins and get your horse to slow down, push the d-pad once to have less of an effect and push it multiple times for a greater effect. You move your horse from side to side by using left and right on the d-pad and you can whip your horse by pressing circle or square for the left or right side respectively to get your horse to spurt at the end of the race. There are a lot of questions on what makes the perfect horse or the best horse and some stats people don’t understand are these along with their explanations: 1. Guts(Gts) - In the last furlong or 2 of a race if your horse is matched up going neck and neck up against an equally matched horse the guts will affect how hard your horse tries and wins, this is very good for front runners 2. Temperment(Tmp) - This is how well your horse likes to be handled, if it takes you a long time to get your horse onto the pace of the race or you have to jockey into position a lot the horse will get very touchy and its condition in the race will often go into yellow or red. Also, some horses with low tempers will run poorly if you whip them in the final stretch. The higher the temper the better because it is easier to manage is recommended for anyone new to the game. 3. Incline(Inc) - This stat is very important because it directly affects your horse’s spurt in the final stretch. A low incline means your horse will run out of stamina long before you want it to, usually horses with a low incline will be best going shorter distances than longer. A high incline is definitely recommended for front runners, one with a low incline is for the most part useless. 4. Track Condition(Con) - This affects how well your horse will run in bad weather. I don’t see this stat affecting my horses very often and can pretty much be ignored because its not very important if you horse is good in other areas. 5. Pacer(PCE) - This will tell you how fast your horse’s spurt is. A slow spurt will last longer while a fast spurt will last less. The best to have is a horse with a fast PCE and a high incline. 6. Horse’s Rating - This is your horse’s speed rating. The best way to look at it is 100 is the track record so if your horse’s rating is 95 it can almost run the time that is the track record. The turf rating is how well your horse runs on turf and the dirt rating is how well your horse runs on dirt. A horse rated 102 on the dirt can win any dirt race in the game while a horse rated 102 on the turf can win some grade 1’s but not all. There are not many ratings over 115 and usually anything over it has poor stats like incline and guts which matter more than speed rating in my opinion. II. Racing The point of any race is to win, what sets this game apart from the Gran Turismo’s of the world is you do it riding in the saddle on a horse. There are many more factors to horse racing than there is in auto racing because you are dealing with flesh and blood and so you can’t predict anything. 1. Before you start the race you’re going to have to check what leg type your horse has: A. Front Runner - these horses love to be the leader and most will give up if they don’t have the lead at the end of the race because they have no closing power. If you’re racing this type you will need to break well every race so that you are in the top 3 horses out of the gate and try and get on the rail as soon as possible. Don’t be afraid to get your horse in front of another horse if he contests you because if you decide to save energy and sit in 2nd or 3rd you should have tried for the lead because you will probably end up out of the money. If you are in the lead(where you should be)you should wait to ask your horse to make his move until the horses around you are almost about to take the lead away. Your biggest challenge here is having enough energy at the end and holding off closers. B. Stalkers - this type of horse loves to sit right off the lead in about 2-4th position(some will sit back further but its not recommended). Usually these horses have good spurts and I definitely recommend this type for anyone starting out. Basically, you want to be about 2 - 3 lengths behind the leader and depending on your spurt wait until you get to about 2.5 furlongs left in the race and you should make your move. Your biggest challenge here is getting past that stubborn front runner with a ton of guts. C. Pack Runners - this kind likes being surrounded by other horses and should sit back around 6-10th depending on how many horses are in the race. Don’t let your horse get to close to the leader or too close to the closers behind you or it won’t be very happy! You should just try and stay on the pace as best you can and wait to make your move at about 2.5 furlongs. Your biggest challenge here is timing your spurt just right so that you don’t take off to early or too late and should win the race right at the end. D. Closers - this horse is a loner, they aren’t very friendly, they like to have all the other horses in their vision because they become nervous if there are too many horses behind them. This horse likes to sit in last or next to last. Just try and not drop too far back in a race. About 3.3 or 3 furlongs you should get your horse up to about 6th or 7th before asking them to run full out and then at about 2.3 furlongs you should start whipping them. This type usually has a very fast spurt and you won’t win too many races by more than 2 or 3 lengths. Your biggest challenge is finding an open lane(75% of the time there is plenty of room on the rail so always look there first). E. Pace horses - this type will run in any position, all they want to do is be right on the pace meaning they don’t want to be losing ground on the leader or gaining ground on him. With this one try and break well and I suggest running him like a stalker. 2. Finding the right horse for you: Before you start a career you should try out the practice mode and take a go with the different style of horses. This will help you find out which type of horse you can run best right now because in career if you pick the wrong horse as your first one it could be career ending if you don’t make any money with it. Make sure to look at the growth rate of a horse before you buy it, it’s the little graph you see when you push square on the horse screen. The best ones usually peak around age 4. 3. Picking the right race for your horse: After buying a horse you should always try it out in a open race no matter what his rating is just so you can try and figure out his quirks and the best way to ride him. Make sure you stick him in the right distance for him and also if a horse goes 7 - 12 furlongs he runs best at 7 furlongs but can make it 12 furlongs. Don’t start putting your horse into graded races until his rating is about 88 when you should try him in a Grade III. Start putting him in Grade II’s when he can win consistently and fairly easily in Grade III’s. Start him in a Grade I only once you’re pretty confident and his rating is about 98 at least. On a side note: 2 and 3 year olds are less matured than anything older so 2 year old Grade I’s are about the equivalent of a 4 year olds and up Grade III and 3 year old Grade I’s are about equal to a 4 year olds and up Grade II. III. CAREER After you’ve tried out practice mode a little and gotten a feel for the game you should go ahead and start a career mode which is the only real mode in this game that’s worth playing for more than an hour or 2. If you’ve gotten pretty good in practice mode go ahead and start playing on normal but if you’ve gotten really good for hard mode for a little bit of a challenge then pick the colors you want for your silks. 1. Your first horse You start out with a measly 10000 credits but that is enough to buy a decent enough horse to win you some money in opens. You should look for a horse around 2k-6k$ because you will need to pay for him his stall and feed pay for him every month which shouldn’t be too much but like I said, don’t spend all your money on your first horse in case he is a complete loser. Find a horse with decent stats in guts and incline and also look for one that goes around 7-10 furlongs and runs best on grass since that is where most of the races are. Your first horse will probably never make it to Grade III so try and stick with opens with him and don’t be worried if he doesn’t win many races because 5th place is still in the money. 2. Jockey Evaluation You probably noticed your jockey evaluation at the end of the race. The higher the better(duh), unfortunately this stat is usually affected more by what place you finish in rather than if you really gave your horse a good ride because sometimes you can just be plain outmatched. What the jockey evaluation does is basically, after you get to a predetermined number a new horse shop will open up and you’ll be able to purchase more expensive and better horses. 3. Unlocking races There are a lot of Grade I’s in the game, too many to list, but you are only able to see that these races are ever there, let alone enter them, if you enter into a qualifying race for this Grade I but the problem is that these qualifying races don’t say they are qualifying races for a Grade I. A lot of the un-lockable races will become available after winning a few grade ones like the Diamond Cup or the Paris Cup etc but there are a few like the Kentucky Derby(louisana derby), Preakness, and the Belmont which only become available after beating a certain race(in the case of the triple crown this race is the Grade II on the dirt in the 4th week of December(2yr olds only)). Later on I might update on what races update which but that will take some work since I haven’t paid attention to what races unlocked what. 4. Secret Events There are a couple secret events in this game, here they are: A. WSJS(I think?) - this is the jockey cup, you get a little automatic message if you are in the top 4 jockeys ranked by number of wins. In this you get the horse you are riding picked for you(never one of the ones you own)and you have to race for points. You race 4 races and the jockey with the most amount of points, gotten by what place you finish in each race, gets 50000 and a little trophy. B. Dream Cup - this is for your horse and you have to win 3 or 4 top Grade I’s in the year with one of your horses and its possible he will qualify for this honor. When you do qualify you get to select what distance you want to go if it gives you this option. Usually, you will end up racing in a distance best for your horse since that is usually the distance you ran in Grand I’s throughout the year. What you get if you win this race is one of the Sammy horses, either Sammy’s Pace or Sammy’s _____(note: if you race 8 furlongs or shorter there is another horse who’s name slips me at this time). The horses in the Dream Cup are EXTREMELY tough. You’re usually going to want and try to block out the Sammy horse by getting in front of it if you want any shot at winning. Another horse to watch out in the Dream Cup is Mums Da Word. MDW is tough because even if you manage to block out the Sammy horse MDW will usually still beat you because he is such a good horse(I don’t recommend buying Mums Da Word if you ever get a chance to because he is soooo expensive and he peaks at 3 so you never get a chance to make your money back with him). IV. BREEDING Having a successful Career depends largely on how well you can breed your horses. Finding the 2 right horses for each other always helps and knowing which horses you should and shouldn’t breed helps too. 1. Deciding which horses to breed You probably shouldn’t try and breed that first horse you got, or even the next one. Don’t worry about breeding any horse that only wins opens because it’s a waste of your time more often than not. The horses you’re going to want to breed are the ones who can at least win Grade II’s and don’t breed anything with a rank under B otherwise what you come out with won’t be so good. 2. When to retire a horse for breeding If your horse has a high enough rating you can probably drop him down a grade even when his speed rating drops so you can still make money with him. When you retire your horse he ends up with the highest speed rating he had when he peaked and not the rating he had when you retired him but unfortunately the same can’t be said about his rank so make sure you don’t lose a lot of races with your horse when you’re about to retire him because his rank will affect how good the foal is that you end up with. 3. Finding the right 2 horses Its best to find 2 horses that are pretty equal in everything. You don’t want to breed a dirt horse to a grass horse because you’ll end up with something that isn’t good in anything. Also, horses that are both have the same leg type usually have the best foals. 4. When you finally decide to breed Since you can only breed each horse once you should always make sure and save your game before you breed in case you end up with a real dud. Now, pick the 2 horses and watch them breed. 5. Weeding out the nobodies After your horses have ‘merged’ you should make sure and check every stat on your new foal before you decide to keep it. Try and get horses with a growth type that peak around 4 years old(you can tell what year they peak at by how many dashes down the first line is). Make sure the horse you get isn’t like 20 points on its speed rating under its parents because if it is you can do a lot better. Once you’ve decided on keeping a horse give it an original name and get ready to race. V. TIPS - Having trouble winning a race with my strategies? Look for a strategy that best fits you and your horse. - Can’t find all those hidden Grade I races? Try buying a 2 year old because a lot of the hidden Grade I races are 3 year old races whose qualifying race is for 2 year olds only - Not breaking well? Try and memorize the breaking countdown, remember, 3 ready’s flash across the screen and then the gate unlatches almost when a 4th ready would flash across the screen. Try and time it so you push up exactly when the gate unlatches. - Can’t win enough races to get into the WSJS? Try and buy horses that go different distances so they aren’t all getting ready to enter in the same race so you can race in more races. Also, buy some horses that aren’t very good but can win opens fairly easily to get your win count up. VI. THANKS - Thanks to everyone who bought Gallop Racer 2001 on PS2 and thanks to all the horsemen and gamblers out there keeping this great sport alive at dieing tracks all over America. - Thanks to the people on the GameFaqs boards for posting a couple suggestions - Thanks to GameFaqs for being so awesome Questions? Comments? Email them to me at feartheclown04@hotmail.com or post them on the gallop racer 2001 boards on GameFaqs. Copy Right Robert Young 2002