Play Online
DOC › Resources
Resources · everything in one place

Guides, handbooks and tools

The handbooks, the card backup guide, the preservation pages and the tools, grouped so you can find them on a phone. For what changed in the online arcade, start with What's new.

What's new

Patch notes for the online arcade, newest first. Changes that affect your horses are pinned at the top.

What's new in the arcadeEvery player-facing change, with dates: new features, fixes, and anything that changes where your horses can save. Arcade FAQVerified answers about every version of the game, with how sure we are about each one. Play onlineReal cabinets, streamed, with seats you can take from a browser.

Handbooks and guides

The three 2004 DOC Racing Handbooks from the English-speaking community, plus our own guides. The handbooks are community riding tradition, not verified game rules; the errata page marks what the ROM confirms.

Beginner's Handbook PDFThe full introduction to raising, training and racing (2004). Advanced Addendum PDFThe deeper strategy: whip charts, jackpot testing, the schedule (2004). Mini Racing Guide PDFThe condensed reference (2004). Handbook errataWhat the handbooks got right and wrong, re-checked against the game in 2026. Stable Management owner's manualThe full manual for the Stable Management System. Tools suite user guideHow to use every tool in the suite, step by step. The hidden rulesThe rules the game never tells you, read from the ROM. Myths, testedCommunity claims checked against the ROM: claim, evidence, verdict. The Perfect StableThe breeding meta: which crosses are worth making. Whip chartsPer-distance, per-leg-type whip schedules you can read at the cabinet.

Card backup and the Vault

Back up a physical DOC player card to a .raw file, then bring its horses into your online stable.

Card backup guideScan a physical player card to a .raw backup with an MSR206 reader/writer, then verify it. Step 5: bring your horse onlineUpload your .raw file to the Player Card Vault (Winner's Circle), get it checked, and move it into your stable. Vault imports close on December 1. My StableWhere the Player Card Vault lives in the online arcade. Sign in first.

Preservation

How the game was brought back, and what each community knew about it.

Preserving Derby Owners ClubThe hub: a lost Sega arcade game, brought back by its community. The hardwareTen boards behaving as one, and what it takes to keep them running. The softwareReading a horse out of a few hundred bytes. Play it onlineReal cabinets, streamed, with seats you can take. Derby Owners Club II: a research dossier NewThe Japan-only 2001 entry, researched by a community member, with notes from our own work. The DOC II cardThe DOC II magnetic card format and its byte map. What the Japanese community knewA bilingual archive of what Japanese players worked out between 1999 and 2001. What the English community knewThe export game's record: handbooks, fan sites and Sega's English paperwork. Hong Kong: the bridgeHow the game crossed into English: the first English board, the internals model and the whip-chart art. Community archiveJapan, Hong Kong and the West: the three wings of the community archive, side by side. 日本語: Japanese editionThe preservation story in Japanese. Press kitFacts, boilerplate and photography for writing about the project.

Tools

Free browser tools for breeding, cards and the game's data. Nothing to install.

DOC Tools suiteCard readers, breeding and feeding advisors, roster and track browsers. Everything runs locally. The ToolboxThe tools, and the record of where each one came from. Breeding LabPredict a foal from any sire and dam. Breeding PlannerPlan a line across generations. Feeding AdvisorWhat to feed, and when. Dirt Number MapAll 256 dirt ratings and the surface and going each one favours. Player card byte mapThe corrected map of the DOC player card. Breeder StudioFoal calculator, analyser and breeding compare for all four versions. ROM StudioRead what is in the game's program data: horses, food, text and tracks. You supply your own files.

Records and community

Track recordsThe fastest recorded time on every course, across all four versions. How to submit your recordsA step-by-step guide. Stable rankingsEvery stable ranked by earnings and wins across the community's cabinets. The 2008 record boardsResult boards of the US scene at its height, recovered from 2008 photographs. ContributeWhat we are hunting (card scans, documents, photos, memories) and how to send it. DiscordThe DOC community: announcements, help and race talk.