Training guide
Races are won in the yard before they're won on the track. In Padooko your horse's Speed, Acceleration and Stamina rise with training, but every workout takes something out of its condition and adds to its fatigue. A good trainer gets the most improvement for the least wear, at the right time. This guide is about that balance.
The three core stats
- Speed: the top speed the horse can reach. Decisive in the straight and the final strides.
- Acceleration: how quickly it gets there. Matters out of the gate, when a gap opens in traffic, and over a short trip.
- Stamina: the size of the energy tank it can spend over a race. Everything over a long trip, and whenever you push.
Every horse has a hidden limit for each stat. As a stat gets close to that limit, gains from training get smaller. The limit itself never appears as a number on any screen; your groom's words ("a gift for speed," "tough as iron," "little room to grow") only give you a hint.
The four workouts
| Workout | Builds | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sprint work | Speed, some Acceleration | Heavy | Short, hard repeats; the workout that gives the most speed |
| Long gallop | Stamina, some Speed | Heavy | A long trip at tempo; opens the lungs |
| Gate practice | Acceleration, some Speed | Medium | Start repeats; sharpens the break |
| Trail walk | A little Stamina | Very light | Clearly lifts morale |
In the game, the workout card shows this in two colors: green bars for what the workout builds, red points for its price (lost condition and added fatigue).
Which workout, when?
- Sprint work is the bread and butter for anyone who wants a fast horse, and also the most tiring. Do it with a fresh horse, not right before a race but once it has recovered from the last one.
- Long gallop is the foundation for milers and stayers. A horse short on stamina fades in the straight, however fast it is.
- Gate practice is valuable for sprinters, and it fixes horses that keep getting left at the gate.
- Trail walk is more about morale than development. It's the cure for a sulky or listless horse, its cost is very light and its wait is short, which makes it the safest work for a horse whose fatigue has crept up.
Waits
Every workout has its own wait. After Sprint work, that horse's sprint button shows a countdown, and the moment it runs out the button comes back. Heavy workouts have long waits, the trail walk a short one. Waits count down in real time, not game time.
Waits are per workout. While a horse waits on Sprint work it can still do Gate practice or a Long gallop, but each new workout lowers condition a bit more and raises fatigue a bit more. More often than not, the real limit isn't the clock but the horse's fatigue.
Noble and Legend horses have shorter waits and recover faster. See Horse tiers.
Condition and fatigue
Every horse has two care gauges:
- Condition: the horse's form. When it's high, the horse trains better and races better. Training and racing lower it; time and feed bring it back.
- Fatigue: the load that builds up. Training and racing raise it; rest and time bring it down.
Both recover hour by hour even while you're away. Better feed speeds that up.
As fatigue climbs, the injury risk in training rises. Hard work on heavy going is riskier too (unless the horse loves the mud). Racing a very tired horse carries an injury risk of its own. A horse whose condition is completely drained can neither race nor train until it rests, and an injured horse doesn't work until it heals.
Resting
The Rest button on the horse's page raises condition and lowers fatigue, and it has its own wait. There are three more ways:
- Rest ticket: earned from quests; rests the horse completely.
- Rewarded ad: if you like, you can watch a short ad to rest a horse for free. That's a full rest too, with a daily limit.
- Rush: you can end a wait with Doko. A paid rest restores the horse fully and also ends a running race gap. Rushes have a daily allowance per horse, and the price is in proportion to the time left.
You never have to rush. A patient yard that plays for free can take its horses all the way to the top; rushing only saves time.
Feed and trainer
How much a workout gives isn't down to the workout alone.
- Feed: Standard, Quality and Premium. Better feed lifts both daily condition recovery and training gains, and the bill along with them. The feed bill is paid per horse every game day.
- Trainer: hire a professional or an elite trainer and training gains go up while the injury risk goes down. Trainers have a regular fee.
When Doko is tight there's no shame in going back to Standard feed and working without a trainer. A horse makes its biggest gains while it's young, and that's when good feed and a good trainer pay back the most.
A sample day
A routine that works for a player who drops in a few times a day:
- Morning: give a fresh horse its main workout (Sprint work for one that needs speed, Long gallop for a stayer). Enter another fresh horse in a race.
- Midday: finish the workouts whose waits have run out. Keep a horse whose fatigue is rising away from heavy work; take it on a trail walk or rest it.
- Evening: rest the horse that raced; if its morale is low, take it on a trail walk. Don't give heavy work to a horse that races tomorrow morning.
Age matters too. Horses are at their peak between four and six. Young horses develop quickly; as they age, both development and performance fall away. Filling a young horse's years with training pays off in its peak years.
Common questions
- My horse's stats have stopped rising. It may be close to its limit, where gains become very slow. That's the sign it's nearing its ceiling.
- Which stat matters most? It depends on the distance. Acceleration and Speed lead over a short trip, Stamina over a long one. See Tracks.
- Does racing improve a horse? A little, yes. But the real development comes from training.
For everything about your horse's health, go on to Yard care.