This is mostly just a couple of reminders as we roll into the January race weeks! First of all, thank you guys for a prompt and successful New Year Sale! That's pretty much finished, though if you see any horses that didn't sell that catch your eye, please reach out to the member selling!

As you all know, we are closing Wk 1 tonight. In light of that, here are some things to keep in mind!

1) As many of you saw on Discord, we are going to be running two game weeks per RL week. We can only do this is everyone steps up to judge and as long as everyone can keep their pages updated and horses entered. We'll do this for as long as we can! Please remember that horse pages need to be updated from the previous week at or around the time of closing the next week. I know it can be tough for those of us that update results only after everything is judged, but please make a real effort to get it done (myself included)! We will be closing tonight as it was 2 weeks after the last BC race was judged, but wk 2 will close on Thursday, 1/30 and wk 3 will close on Sunday, 2/2. Our close days will then alternate Thursdays and Sundays, and the close time will remain at 9PM Eastern. We'll do our best to keep up announcements to remind everyone when close will be happening!

2) Please remember to get your registry post, horse ages, and pages sorted out if you haven't yet! It can help alleviate some confusion.

3) While we need to get things judged quicker, we are still going to implement the 4-per-track rule for the first 24 hours after close to get as much variety as possible in when judging. That being said, we are going to request that you please sign up for races to judge ahead of time on the entry form so people who can't judge as many can still get some! Variety is so important, so we all need to make a conscious effort to do our part (again, myself definitely included).

4) Side note, the BC juvenile sprints used to run at 6F but somehow got switched to running 5F the last two year, excluding some top sprinters that run 6-9. Starting in the Y20 BC, they'll once again be running at 6F.

5) Reminder that for the first half of the year, 4yo+ will almost always beat 3yos, and everyone will almost always beat 2yo. There is a tiny bit of wiggle room in there, but remember this is based on physical maturity, not experience, so this should be nearly automatic.

6) After experimenting with not allowing 2yos to run back-to-back weeks last year for the first part of the year, we're pitching that and going back to allowing it as long as it's still only twice per month. Keep in mind that if you run them 3 times in four weeks (but across months so it's technically allowed), judges may take notice of it. Some may not. Just remember to space your juveniles appropriately, because they're still 'babies'!

7) I know we just talked about this, but again, going into the new year, we remind all of you that you can shake up results! Nobody's going to get mad because their 'star' horse finishes 4th every once in awhile - or certainly shouldn't. Give the occasional upset, don't only give wins to horses that have already won. Take overall HOTY experience into account, not just what they've won. We don't want this to be a game where we all know the results before they're even posted. Staff have been doing everything we can to discourage this, but please remember that we often aren't the ones judging! That's how the culture used to be, but we're all doing so much better about accepting results for what they are and moving on. No horse is guaranteed a good season, so we should all be at the edge of our seats to see how the cards fall!

Thanks everyone, and let's have a great Y20!
The Staff Team

Read and understood. Good luck in Y20 everyone!

Read and understood! Happy Y20 y'all!

Read! Good luck in Year 20!

Read and understood! Happy Y20 everyone!

Read and understood!

Got it.

Yep.

Read

Just realized I never replied to this! Read. (: