Auto Race

You do not have to be at your desk five times a day to race a horse. Auto Race is a standing instruction: pick the classes, the days and the times, set a spending cap, and your horse is declared automatically for every race that fits — until the cap is reached or the plan ends.

It is the same entry, made the same way, at the same moment a hand-made entry would be. Auto Race gets no earlier access, no reserved gate and no discount. It just turns up on time, every time.

Setting one up

From Events, choose Auto Race on any horse in your stable. The panel asks five things.

Classes. Only the classes that horse is actually eligible for are offered — its rating decides that, and the list updates as it climbs. Pick one or several.

Days. Any combination of the seven. Weekdays only, weekends only, or all of them.

Times. Four bands, in your own local time:

Band	Your local time
Morning	06:00 – 12:00
Afternoon	12:00 – 17:00
Evening	17:00 – 22:00
Night	22:00 – 06:00

Your timezone is captured when you create the plan, so "evening" means your evening — not ours, and not UTC.

Date range. When it starts and when it stops. A plan always has an end date; there is no open-ended instruction that keeps spending after you have forgotten about it.

Gates. Choose preferred gates in order — say 3, then 4, then 5 — and the first free one is taken. Or choose Random and let the draw decide. If your preferred gate is taken by another owner first, the next one on your list is used, and you are not charged for the attempt.

The spending cap

Every plan has a cap, and the cap is the real control.

Before you confirm, the panel shows exactly what your balance buys, class by class:

Balance $340

  Class VI    $10     up to 34 races
  Class V     $25     up to 13 races

  Your plan   C5 + C6, weekday evenings, 30 days
              about 22 races  ·  est. $308 (incl. $28 feed)
              limited by your $200 cap  →  about 10 races

Those figures are checkable: 18 Class VI and 4 Class V is 22 races, so the entries are 18 × $10 + 4 × $25 = $280 and the feed is 18 × $1 + 4 × $2.50 = $28. The cap then buys about ten, because a race costs its entry and its feed — $11 in Class VI, $27.50 in Class V.

Two things to read carefully:

• These are estimates. They count races that are actually scheduled in your date range, but a gate can be taken by another owner before your horse gets there. You may enter fewer races than the estimate; you will never enter more than the cap allows.
• Where the cap is what limits you rather than your balance, the panel says so. If you set $200 against a $340 balance, the cap is the binding number.
• Feed counts against the cap when your plan feeds. Feed is 10% of the entry fee with a $1 minimum, so a Class VI race costs $10 + $1 and a Class V race $25 + $2.50. The panel's estimate includes it, and a race is only entered when the entry and its feed both fit inside what is left of the cap.

Your balance is only ever charged one entry at a time, at the moment the gate is confirmed — the entry fee, and the feed with it when your plan feeds. Nothing is reserved, pre-authorised or held. If an entry fails for any reason, no money moves.

When your balance runs out

The plan pauses; it is not cancelled. Top up and it carries on from the next eligible race. You are not made to set it up again, and you do not lose the plan because you were away for a week.

A plan ends on its own only when you reach the cap you set, or the date range runs out.

What you can see

Every plan keeps a record of every race it tried to enter, and what happened:

• Entered — your horse is in, with the gate and the fee
• Gate taken — another owner got there first, no charge
• Not eligible — the horse could not run in that race
• Paused — balance or cap reached

If your horse entered three races last week and you expected five, the plan will tell you which two it missed and why. You should never have to guess.

The rules Auto Race still obeys

Auto Race is a convenience, not an advantage. Everything that applies to a manual entry applies to it:

• Entries close one hour before the off — 72 hours for Group races. Auto Race is bound by the same deadline. It cannot slip into a field after declarations close.
• One horse per stable per race. You cannot fill a field with your own horses and race against yourself.
• Eligibility is unchanged. A horse that is not allowed in a class is not allowed in it automatically either.
• Maidens are free and open. Every horse except a Hyperion may run in the Maiden, winners included, with no weekly limit — so a cap will never stop a Maiden plan; the number of Maidens on the card is what paces it.

If your horse is sold

The plan pauses immediately and both you and the buyer are told. A standing instruction does not follow a horse to a new owner, and it never charges you for a horse you no longer have.

Changing or stopping a plan

Pause, edit or cancel at any time from the horse's page. Changes apply to races not yet entered — a horse already declared stays declared, exactly as it would if you had entered it by hand. If that race is later cancelled, the entry fee is refunded and your cap is credited back.

One active plan per horse, so there is never a question about which instruction is in force.