This is my bird, Kikuichimonji:
He is my pride and joy. I bred and raised him for racing. His stats are:
Strength: SS
Endurance: SS
Discernment: B
Receptivity: F
Abilities: Gallop and Canter
He is, through and through, a racing bird. When equipped with a Speed Apple, he wins most races… Except for C1 races and the Passhow Swamptrot. It’s not like he’s placing Second or Third in a C1 race. He goes from placing first in a C2 to not placing. That means I’m out 10,000 gil on top of 74 chocobucks. There’s very little I can do besides change his item, and anything that’s not a Speed Apple isn’t worth using at all. If I had not maxed out his Strength or Endurance, then I could equip a different saddle on him to improve his stats, but because I maxed out his racing stats (since, y’know, he’s a fucking racing bird) there’s really nothing I can do about it.
And don’t get me fucking started on the Swamptrot… Hey look, the sheep and the rabbit each use Sheep Charge and Wild Carrot three times. That’s totally cool and fair.
Just another example of, “Hey, look, I did everything right. Oh well, too bad for me!”
I’ve got a similar bird and equally not pleased with Chocobo Racing. I think you need to spam the shit out of the regular races for dozens of hours to cap the mind stats as well or something via training. It’s patently bullshit though, so I can’t be bothered.
Isn’t that… exactly the same as everything else in FFXI?
There’s quite the racket going on. I’ve watched people sign up their mules for racing in C1s for the same race. If you nab first and second, that’s 140k in gil, at a cost of about 20k, or a 120k profit.