How To Get Started With Photo Finish Live

EDIT

THIS GUIDE IS OUTDATED. FOR OUR NEW IN-DEPTH GUIDE, PLEASE GO HERE.

/EDIT

Photo Finish Live will be the Madden Football of horse racing for its 600 million fans and is the official game of the Kentucky Derby (of which it will host the virtual version). This guide will take you through the process of purchasing a Gen 0 horse racing ticket, racing, and breeding.

Step 1 — Signup at https://photofinish.live

Step 2 — Follow this Guide to purchase a Gen 0 horse racing ticket if you don’t have one yet.

Step 3 — Login at photofinish.live once you have your Gen 0 horse.

Step 4 — Connect your wallet at the top right then click on “tickets” and redeem the ticket. If it shows as already redeemed, that’s ok, but you’ll need to open a support ticket on Discord to have it manually transferred to you.

Step 5 — Fund your wallet by clicking on the Derby icon next to “Tickets” then go to “Fund Wallet”. At this time, you can use a credit card, Solana, ETH, or Polygon USDC to fund the wallet (other options will be available in the future). Your dollars will be converted to $DERBY at a ratio of $1 = 80 $DERBY. $DERBY is the in-game token, will always be 1:80 (it’s a stablecoin), and can be withdrawn for real money at any time.

Step 6 — Let’s race! Go to “My Stable” at the left

Step 7 — This will bring up a list of all the horses in your stable. Click on your horse. If it isn’t yet named, name it.

Step 8 — Take note of the stars below the name of your horse. These are its “preferences”. As you can see by the horse below, its preferences are right turning tracks that are dirt and the preferred condition is firm. You almost always want to race on preference.

Step 9 — Now that we know our horse’s preferences, let’s select a race. There’s two easy ways to do this:

A. Click on the “Find Recommended Races” link as shown in the image above on your horse’s page.

B. Go the races tab at the left:

Step 10 — On the races tab, you’ll see all the races that are starting soon, those that can be wagered on, and those that are still open to entry. I personally use the race filter on this page to find the races that fit my horses preference so let’s do that. Click on the filters button:

Step 11 — Add a filter for “Track Turn” and “Track Surface”. For my horse, I selected right and dirt. Selecting those filters changes the races available on the main screen. For me, they’re all right turning and dirt tracks. But I now need to look at the weather forecast for each track to try to find one where the track is likely to be soft since that is what my horse likes.

Note: You can use “Save Filter” to save your preferred filters so you don’t have to manually enter them each time.

Step 12 — Check out the filtered races. Notice the weather icons and percentages? If my horse likes soft tracks, I’ll select one where there is a 60% or higher chance of rain. If your horse likes firm tracks, do the opposite. One strategy is to bet that the weather changes so you select off preference with a slightly weaker horse but let’s stick to racing on preference for now.

Step 13 — You’ll notice there are also DISTANCES for each race (in furlongs) and different race types. You’ll need to race your horse in various distances and pay attention to its “Fleet Figures” to determine what distance it prefers. As for the race types, let’s break those down:

Graded Stakes (I, II, III) — These are the high stakes races. They cost more to enter and the purses are big. If you don’t have an S grade or extremely high grade A+ horse, you probably want to stay away from these. If you’re a baller ready for the big time with your high grade horse, get ready for some heart pounding fun!

Grade Restricted — These races only allow certain grade horses in. It’s a great place for B and low grade A horses to run without being beaten up by the big dogs. Click on the “Reqs” button to see the specific grades allowed for each race.

Maiden — Your horse can race in these until it gets its first win. Be careful as unless the race is Grade Restricted, your B or A horse may run against an S horse that has never won.

Handicap — Stronger horses that meet certain criteria will have weight added to them to even the field a bit. As an example, this often allows A horses to be competitive with S horses. Click on the “Reqs” button to see the specific rules of each specific race. We find that B horses don’t do very well in handicaps but your mileage may vary.

Allowance — Races with specific registration criteria such as “Must have less than X wins” as well as criteria that cause your horse to carry extra weight and thus slow it down to even the field. Click on “reqs” to see them.

Stakes — Think of stakes as the tier before graded stakes. You’ll see all sorts of grades of horses here trying to determine if they’re good enough for the big time.

Claimers — These are races where people may “claim” your horse if they like it by paying a race-specified price. Lower tier horses will shine in these as no S horse would run in a $300 claimer so it should even the fields a lot. But be careful! Your prized horse could be claimed. So only race here if you’re ok with your horse being sold at the claiming price!

Often you’ll see a combination of the above such as a maiden race that is grade restricted to B- to B+ horses.

Step 13 — Register your horse in a race you think it’ll do well in, note the time, and come back later to watch it race. LFG!

Step 14 — After the race, it’s time to do some analysis! Click on your horse and check out the “Fleet Figures”. Does it give any hint on how you might better race your horse? Also check the specific race and see how your horse stacked up against the competition.

Step 15 — Your horse will now be “exhausted” for 24 hours. You need to wait until it is recovered to be able to race again but you can register it for a race more than 24 hours out. After 24 hours your horse will be “recovering” for 24 hours. It can race immediately with no risk in beta. If you race before it is “fully recovered” once we exit beta, its chance for injury goes up.

Retiring and Breeding

At some point you will want to retire and breed your horse. Click here for a guide on exactly how to do that.