Spring Exploitations in HoLV

Players of FoMT and MFoMT will be familiar with the Spring Horse Races as the first opportunity to make a significant profit. In HoLV, you can trade your Medals for Lumber, which is even better than money in the first Spring Season.

Medals cost 50G each, so you may wish to save as much money as possible in anticipation of the Spring Races on 22 Spring.

There are three Races. In the first Spring, you will not be able to enter a Horse in any Race but you nonetheless can wager on them.

The first Race is a Spring or Short Distance Race. The second is a Long Distance Race and the third is a Steeplechase.

It appears that the first Race is the one that is the easiest to predict. The favourite usually wins at 2 to 1 odds. This is NOT a guaranteed result, however. I have experienced results wherein the horse at 4 to 1 odds won instead.

Unfortunately, you cannot save your game at 1.59 p.m. at the entrance to the Race Course as you could in Mineral Town, but you always can reload to replay the entire day if you wish. In almost every case that I or a fellow HM fanatic replayed the Race Day, the favourite won the 1st Race. The other two Races were a little more variable.

Louis: It’s best to use logic to pick a winnning horse. Trust the odds. Don’t gamble on a long shot and expect to win.

By the time the Summer Races are held, you may be able to enter your own Horse in one of the Races. It is suggested that you enter the Long Distance Race as you probably will have more items in your possession that will restore your Stamina than Carrots or Mineral Carrots, the only items that will increase your Speed. When your own Horse is entered in a Race, the odds will be utterly random. He may go off as the favourite at 2 to 1 or he may be posted as a longshot at 6 to 1. If you think you can win the race, make certain that the odds are long and then bet on him. It is worth the effort of reloading back to 6.00 a.m. if your Horse is posted as the favourite.

On Race Day, in fact, you may wish to do as little as possible BEFORE the Races are run, as you may wish to reload the game if the results are not profitable for you.


A very small potential exploitation exists when you accept Part-Time Work in Martha's Kitchen at the Villa. She will ask you to prepare a specific Dish and usually will give you an excess of ingredients. If you know the Recipe (and it should be included in my HoLV Cookbook Guide if you do not), you can use the least expensive and the fewest ingredients to prepare the required number of Dishes. Martha always will give you any 'leftover' ingredients.

For example, when she asked Freyr to make 3 Fish Meals, he was able to choose his second ingredient in each instance from a wide variety of items, including Breadfruit, Tomatoes, Green Herb, Mushrooms and Walnuts. Fish Meal is made with two ingredients, one of which always must be Fish. He took home about 15 items.

In another case, when Martha asked him to make 5 blocks of Cheese using Medium Milk, she gave him 14 Medium Milk. He only needed to use 10 and thereby was able to go home with 4 Medium Milk, a 'Wanted Item' at the Greengrocer's Shop.

As far as Part-Time Work in general is concerned, every Job has its own rules.

Where Mining and Forestry are concerned, it is the the number of times that you accept the Job that counts in terms of unlocking new options rather than the amount of work completed. You need to work for Rudolph five times in order to unlock the Mine. Similarly, you need to work for Woody five times to unlock the Forest. As you cannot keep anything from the Mine except Mineral Crystals when you are working for Randolph and only Mushrooms and other Wild Items when working for Woody, you may wish to conserve your time and energy a little and simply do the bare minimum in order to unlock the freedom to Mine and Chop Lumber for yourself. In the case of Bob's Part-Time Job, you may wish to focus on a single Horse as well as boosting Bob's Friendship each time with a gift of Fodder in order to obtain a Horse from him at the start of Summer. Even if you only brush one Horse and Brush and Milk the Cow, as well as throwing Fodder into all 6 stalls, you will earn 100G and the Small Milk. Note that Friendship Points earned by ALL the Animals he owns will count towards the minimum total FP requirement, however.

Once you have unlocked the Mine for your own use, Rudolph's Part-Time Job no longer will exist. Once you unlock the Forest, you no longer will be able to work for Woody, but you still will be obliged to apply to him for access to the Forest. What this means, in effect, is that you only can visit the special Forest area on days when the weather is fine and never on Tuesday or Thursday when the Carpentry Shop is shut. The Mine, on the other hand, is not subject to the original hours set for Rudolph's Part-Time Work and although he will continue to stand near the entrance during those hours, you need not apply to him for permission in order to smash Rocks.

Bob's Part-Time Work continues after he gives you a Horse. Martha's Part-Time Job as well as Ronald's Job of caring for his Chickens continue indefinitely. These two jobs are situated inside buildings and payment therefore is based on the job rather than the time spent. Bob's Part-Time Work, as it partially is performed outside is based on the amount of time spent in the Pasture. You can arrive early and stay until 6.00 p.m. to earn almost 1000G in a single day. You do need to Milk the Cow, however, if you wish to receive the Milk 'Bonus'.

Spring Horse Race Exploit in HM Boy & Girl as well

Many years ago, when playing FoMT, I discovered that I could take my Basket to the Races and winning Medals, purchase a total of 39 brooches there, placing 30 in the Basket, 8 in my large rucksack and 1 in my hands, leaving my Basket at Rose Square until I could throw the brooch in my hands into the shipping container at home.

This provided sufficient wealth to allow me to purchase every possible upgrade and as many seeds as any farmer could desire before the end of Spring in the first year.

When More Friends of Mineral Town was released, I discovered I could use the same exploit in that game. Furthermore, racing was fairly predictable up to a point and it helped immensely that one could save the game directly before one entered Rose Square, making it easy to reload if the wrong horse won.

One can use this trick up to a point in Harvest Moon Boy & Girl as well. I have not tested it with the Basket yet because the races are wildly unpredictable and I grew tired of reloading the entire day. As you can save your game only at the point of going to bed at night, you have to replay the entire day if you wish to replay any part of the day, including the Races on 18 Spring.

If you can bear it though, prior to the point where you can win enough Medals to be able to purchase the Power Berry, you can trade your Medals for Earrings at the cost of 33 Medals each. Earrings ship for 2000G. As the price of any ticket is 50G, even if you bet on a horse with odds of 1 to 1 in the First Spring to win only 33 medals on a bet of 33 Medals, you can purchase Earrings and ship them for 2000G, giving you a profit of 350G. If you win on a horse at better odds, obviously you can buy more earrings and make a greater profit.

The problem here is that the results really are completely random and not even related to ordinary probabilities. A horse going off at even odds can lose to a horse that goes off at 13 to 1 odds. It happens frequently! As previously stated, if one could reload at the point of entering Rose Square, it wouldn't be so bad, but when one must replay the entire day, it becomes an exercise in frustration.

Your best chance to win enough Medals for the Power Berry is when you first race your own horse. Your first opportunity is the Spring of the second year. As it will be the horse's first race, the odds will be very high. If you can win at those odds, you should be able to purchase the Power Berry.

All other prizes, apart from the Earrings, are not worth the investment. A ticket costs 50G. A Truffle costs 12 Medals, making its price higher than its shipping value of 500G. The other Jewelry items, although they COST more, do not ship for more than the Earrings. All jewelry ships for 2000G.

When the Lumber is offered AFTER your purchase of the Power Berry, you should be at a point in the game where you never will need that quantity of Lumber again. By the end of the first year in fact, you probably will have all building upgrades including the Hothouse. It therefore always is better to exchange medals for Earrings and then ship them. Of course, once you have lived through a year or so, you probably won't need the profit from ANY shipments and therefore may wish to give away the jewelry instead of shipping it. That is your choice, of course.

You always could opt to trade your Medals for Bodigizer XL or Turbojolt XL but by then, you should have a full kitchen and be able to make food items that work almost as well and cost far less...