by Alabama » Wed Aug 04, 2010 11:12 am
They aren't "completely" random.. Usually, it's one or two horses that place randomly, which in turn changes placing for other horses. If the horses are close in scores (within a point or two of each other), it can make it seem more random as the horses jockey for placings. Dressage is one of the events notorious for having closely scored horses. In the events you listed, the top 10 horses are within 3 points from 1st to 10th. I think when I was testing Dressage for randomness, the score range of an individual horse was about 2 points.
Conformation is the only event that has predetermined set scores for events with no age or skill bonuses and the horses aren't trained while being evented. Even there, sometimes the horse that always places first might be bumped out by a random horse, or it might be the random horse and gets bumped somewhere down the line. That's why Dragon's confy horses, which have the best confy scores don't have 100% placing record. In the other events, the scores aren't set, each training changes something about the horse, increasing this or that stat, changing potential on two stats, bringing the horse closer or further from age bonus, the event scoring itself might change slightly because of "judges" (Run a horse through the same trial event a few times without training or taking a turn and you'll see the "range" it might be scored in), etc.
The 16 yo horse isn't the random horse if it's placing consistently.