Madman’s Super Sim Searcher Download Page

** This page partially rewritten by Denovo, October 2006 **

 

Version 4.31 (2/28/02) is now being supported via the “complete” download.  Version 4.33 (4/14/02) is supported via the “quick install”.  To upgrade from 4.x to 4.33, simply download the “quick install” file, and unzip over your old SSS.  For details of version revisions (to see whether downloading the newer version is worth it for you), please see at the bottom of the page!

What is the “Super Sim Searcher”?

 

How do I get it?

 

VERSION 4.31 – “COMPLETE” SUPER SIM SEARCHER PROGRAM AND AUXILIARY FILES:

 

If this is your first installation, here are the files you need.  The following link (3.4 megabytes) provides you with the complete setup file.  YOU WILL ALSO NEED TO DOWNLOAD the HORSES.MDB file -- unzip it and save in the SAME directory that you installed the Super Sim Searcher to.  Also, notice that this “complete” version may or may not be “complete”, depending on your version of Windows – see below for trouble shooting if this “Complete” file doesn’t work immediately.

 

SuperSimSearcher Complete With Setup Files (version 4.31, 3.4 megs)

 

Note: The installation instructions are as follows:

 

a) unzip all files to a common directory and run the setup.exe program

 

QUICK Install (v. 4.33)

 

SuperSimSearcher.exe file  (version 4.33) – 84K

 

(If you have Visual Basic 5.0 or greater, even if you haven’t installed version 4.31, simply download this file, AND download the HORSES.MDB file (to the same directory), and you should be set.  If you get any errors, however, you will likely have to download the “Complete” version first).

 

WARNING:  To use the sire calculations in this new version, you must have the BREEDING.TXT file properly installed.

 

How to Interpret The Sire Statistics from Version 4.x! – A guide to how the statistics are created, and some of the ways they can be used, as well as a highlight of a couple of pitfalls.  NOTICE: This page is a bit out-dated, and doesn’t reflect the new method for listing allowance, stakes, and graded stakes win totals.  The new method should be more intuitive – all graded stakes wins also count as allowance and stakes win, and all stakes wins also now count as allowance wins.  Thus, the % of allowance wins for a sire now actually means the % of horses who have won at that level OR HIGHER.

OTHER FILES:

INSTRUCTIONS (*.doc format after unzipping)  Note that these instructions do not address the additions to version 3.0.  Hopefully, you can figure these additions out by visiting the bottom of this page.

HORSES.MDB (REQUIRED DOWNLOAD FOR ALL NEW USERS.  Unzip into the SAME directory where you installed the SuperSimSearcher.  If you are upgrading from any previous version you will NOT need to download this file.)

 

NOTICE TO ALL USERS HAVING PROBLEMS IMPORTING FILES WITH THE ABOVE COMPLETE INSTALL PACKAGE:

 

If you do NOT have Access 97 or Access 2000 installed on your machine, then you probably don’t have a Microsoft Jet Database Access package installed. 
If you are using Windows 98 or later, follow these steps:

 

1) In Windows Explorer, double-click the mdac_typ.exe file from this zipfile to begin the MDAC setup.

2)  Restart your computer.

(you might try the Sim Searcher now, just to see if you get the same error.  Probably will. . . if so proceed to step 4).

3)  In Windows Explorer, double-click the Jet40SP3_Comp.exe from this zipfile to begin the Jet 4.0 setup.

4)  Restart your computer.

5)  Start the Super Sim Searcher . . .

 

Version History:

4.33 (4/14/02)

-     Change the date of tag expiration to reflect the new 6-month starter tag rule in the sim.  Also, change the listing on the “Lineage” screen to reflect this same change.

4.32 (3/15/02)

-          Fixed the new sire win% calculations.  Version 4.31 was reporting win totals for sires according to the new method, but the win totals broken down by dirt/turf and route/sprint were still be added the old way.

-          Fixed the interpretation of CPU value races so that CPU restricted claimers will no longer be considered in the sire summaries as allowance races.  (oops!)

-          Fixed a minor bug that didn’t allow the user to right-click on the main search grid for the LAST horse/race.

-          Fixed a bug in the right-click menu that improperly allowed users to select “owner” searches after doing a sire search.

4.31 (2/28/02)

-          Improved the “right click” menu bar for short-cut searches

-          Allowed for the N1y, N2y, N3y, n4y conditions to be read into the SSS.  This was a critical error in new raceouts, since this new restriction was now being used by the sim.

-          Added a lot of information to each horse search.

-          You really need to upgrade to this version, since all prior versions will now be incompatible with the new raceouts.

4.2 (2/4/02)

-          Increased the speed of the “Import Raceout” routine.  I did this by separating the Import Raceout feature from a new feature called a “Compact Database” routine.  Previously, both these routines were run simultaneously for every download – although you didn’t know it.  Now, you can import multiple raceout.zip’s, and compact the database at your leisure.  Compacting the database simply saves hard drive space.  This is a critically nice feature for new users.

-          Added information to horse searches:  Now, the last owner’s name appears, along with the W-P-S-4-5 record of that horse FOR THAT OWNER.  Also included are earnings for the current owner.

-          Added a feature that indicates the last date at which the current tag for the horse will be accurate.  This data will only be accurate if you have ALL of the raceout.zips from the previous 52 weeks of racing included in your database.

-          Added the ability to edit / add tracks at your leisure.  Simply go to “Utilities” and type in the track number (1-99) and two-letter code.  Should be self-explanatory.

-          Changed the menu design for a few options.  I did this to save space in order to include the additional information I just described.

-          Removed the previous “patches” to the old databases.  This means the program loads a bit faster.  It also means you’ll have to use this version’s “add track” feature to add tracks 73-??.

4.1 (7/29/01)

-          Fixed a calculation error that was taking place for the percentage of wins for a sire in Allowance, Stakes and Graded Stakes races.

-          Added the ability to report statistics for 2 year old’s only

-          Added the ability to specify the minimum number of races required to quality for MSW% . . . this is useful for 2 yo analysis, in which most horses haven’t had 5 runs yet.

4.0 (7/24/01)

-          Patches the horses.mdb file to accommodate the new tracks.  Old versions will call tracks 73, 74, 75, and 76 “California”.

-          Allows for Statistical reports of Sires!  To do these functions, you must have Davarto’s Sire Search program properly installed, downloadable from DENOVO's Page

o         How do you interpret these numbers?  This will take a bit more explaining . . . And will be available in a report soon.  Summary:

§          Add up the stats for all 3 yo’s or older who have raced at least 5 times to calculate Maiden stats, and average speed stats,

§          Add up the stats for all 3 yo’s or older who have raced at least 10 times for the Allowance Stats.

3.0 (6/28/01)

-          Added the “Special” search to find up to 4 stables simultaneously.  To do this, click the “Spec.” button.

o         Once here, type in the name(s) of the stables you wish to find.

1.      If you wish to save this set of names for later reference, click the “Add” button.

2.      If you wish to immediately do a Search, click the Search button.

3.      Note that if you do this type of search, it takes a bit longer than a traditional stable listing

o         If you see any names in the box to the right, you can Delete those names by selecting and then hitting “delete”

o         If you see any names in the box to the right, you can Use those names, by selecting and clicking “use”

o         If, for some reason, you think the names in the box are missing something, you can hit “load”, although you should never have to actually do this.

-          Added a Wildcard Search.  Instructions to do this are as follows:

o         If you want to search for all horses that start with “Stormy”, type in “Stormy*”

o         If you want to search for all horses that start with “Stormy” and then have an unknown character, and then end in “Prospector”, type in “Stormy?Prospector”

o         Note that a maximum of 15,000 horses can be displayed / calculated for any single search.

o         Note also that these wildcard searches take much longer than your regular search routines.

o         Note that you can still list all horses owned by “*computer” However, this comes at a cost – You will not be able to find all horses that end in “computer”, since I disabled the wildcard search for this special case, since *computer is an owner of great interest in the sim.

-          Changed the algorithm for importing raceout.zips.  In case you are getting any strange errors because the raceout.zip’s don’t correctly number the week, simply change the FIRST race to reflect the proper week, and all other races for that week should now import and import correctly.  For example, the raceout.zip for week 1068 had the first race listed as “068.0101”.  If you would have changed that single race to “1068.0101” with this version, then the whole raceout.zip will now import properly.  J

-          When importing raceout.zip files, the program now recognizes Filly restricted races, and all of the various kinds of allowance races.  To save screen and storage space, I used an abbreviated coding system, as follows:

o         F-3yo+ is a Filly Restricted race for 3 yo’s and older.

o         0-2yo is an Open race for 2yo’s only.

o         A1x, A2x, A3x, A4x are all Allowance, Non-Winners of ONE, TWO, THREE, or FOUR, except for Non-M/C/O/S races.

o         A1L, A2L, A3L, A4L are all Allowance, Non-Winners of ONE, TWO, THREE, or FOUR Lifetime.

o         1M, 40, 250 are Allowance races, restricted to CPU values less than 1 million, $40,000, $250,000, respectively.

o         A1t, A2s, A3n are Allowance races, Non-Winners of ONE, TWO or THREE in the last 3, 6, or 9 months

o         A-H is an Allowance race, restricted to Homebreds

o         A-T is an Allowance race restricted to a Track

o         Alw is an unrestricted allowance race

o         Clm is an unrestricted Claim race (the tag is noted in a separate column)

o         A “C” followed by any of the above characters, like C1x or C1t, or C-H or whatever is simply a Claim race that has the same restrictions as just described for an allowance race.

o         Wow.  Did I get all these?

o         You will have to RE-IMPORT any raceout.zip data you have already imported if you wish this information to be stored for the raceout.zips you have already imported.  Sorry.  It took me about an hour to delete and re-import all the raceouts, and I had stored them neatly in a single directory.  But this is TOTALLY OPTIONAL.  The program will function perfectly well if you don’t do this.  Just remember that an “Alw” race that was imported with the old version may or may not be an Open allowance race, where all the new imports will make that distinction.

-          Add the ability to change the background color

-          Made the column widths PERMANENT

-          Added Owner and Earning Information to the Lineage screen for each horse

-          Cleaned up the Homebred moniker for each horse on the lineage screen

-          fixed a bug that occurred if the horse has been bred away, but the original horse’s name still appeared on the lineage screen.

-          fixed the fact that hitting “enter” from the ID textbox didn’t automatically initiate a search.

-          fixed a bug in Version 2.0 that saved a file called “test.txt” to your hard-drive. You can now delete that file, and it won’t appear again.  I hope.

-          fixed a bug that happened when you accidentally tried to import data that was already there.  I think version 2.0 may have deleted data from weeks 579 and 586 erroneously in those cases.

2.0 (6/15/01)

-          Added a menu from the data-grid.  To access this menu, left-click on a cell in the data-grid to “select” a horse (do this after you’ve already done a search.  Then right-click.  The menu will let you:

o         Download Horse Lineage Information from the web (active web connection is required).

o         “Filter” the data listed in the data-grid, so that only other rows that EXACTLY EQUAL the cell you’ve selected will be listed.

o         A separate (and more convenient in some cases) method to search for horses, owners or races.

-          Increased the search speed substantially

-          Automatically upgrades the structure of the accompanying horses.mdb database.

-          When entering search information, now simply hit “Enter” to execute a new search

-          Miscellaneous error-checking improvements

-          When a user resets the column widths, these changes are permanent for the duration of the session

1.0a:  (5/25/01)

-          Fixed a bug that was causing an “unexpected error” for some users

-          Changed the sorting of the earnings column to be numeric rather than alphanumeric (double click on flex grid)

-          Changed a few flexgrid column widths to hopefully make the display more robust

1.0  Initial Release