By Zane — General Manager of Bukidnon Farms ⛰
A Photo Finish Live account with myself as your referer can be created here. You will receive a free trainer horse that you can immediately practice racing with.
Distance is overall the most important consideration when selecting a race for a particular horse. It is this this authors belief that Race Type (Race Types in Photo Finish Live) is just as important, but generally picking race type is easier and can stay fixed for longer periods of time.
In Photo Finish Live, all races take place between four furlongs (4F) and twelve furlongs (12F). There are total nine distances between and including 4F and 12F. All horses have underlying attributes of Start, Speed, Stamina, and Finish that together influence what distances the horse will perform its best
In general each horse will have a preferred distance where it will perform its best and have the best chance at winning and earning money. Discovering a horse’s preferred distance (or distance preference / “DP”) is essential and is the highest priority task for Juvenile horses (2yo) who are in their first season racing. The sooner you find where your horses is good, the sooner your can really win and earn
Winning is the whole point of a racehorse. Beating other horses and earning money from doing so. When you run your horses at their preferred distance, or close to it, they will perform more optimally. As you win/place/show, you’ll feel more confident in investing in higher cost races against stronger competition for bigger pots & rewards
The base case would be that a horse is optimal at one distance between 4 and 12F. Good horses tend to be good at more than one distance. For example two distances next to each other like 9F and 10F. Or they have a favorite distance and are quite capable +1 or -1 of that distance, like 5F and then capable at 4F and 6F as well
Extremely strong horses can win money and be profitable across three or more distances, e.g. 9–12F. It may also be possible that a great horse can be excellent at a single distance only, all good if that distance happens to be a Major Championship distance!
Merino with his low Start and above-grade Stamina and Finish enjoyed success at 10, 11, and 12F
The “Race Results By Distance” chart is good for determining preferred distance. We want to see wins > shows (2nd place) > and places (3rd place) in that order. Keep in mind that even great horses do not win all the time
For weak horses it’ll be tougher to figure out their DP, because they are slow and/or unreliable at even their ideal distances. For bad horses the strategy would be to utilize certain race types and potentially weather to run against slower competition. The other solution is to simply not race these horses, or to wait and test them again when they are older due to how strong of an impact Aging can have on performance
At time of writing (Oct 2025, Season 34*) benching (not racing a horse anymore) is common and the meta is to figure out who your top 10-30% of racers are and focus your time and investment there. If you can get a little bit of money for your weak horses, that’s great
For the weak high grade horses in the game, SS- and S+, the best place to try to find success is probably Claiming races with a lower claiming price. You get to run without weights, there is a lucrative Championship race at the end of the season, and the entry fees are much lower than Stakes and GI/GII/GIII type races (which are only for strong winning horses). Do note that other player can claim (buy) your horse for the claiming price, so there is a game going on here as far as doing your best to correctly value your horse and run it against the proper level of competition