Race Preview Article Writing 101

Original article written by Star Girl posted 14 years 2 weeks ago

So you want to write an article to earn some extra cash but are unsure how to go about it? This article is just to give a basic overview on how to write a basic race preview article. Giving you a basic outline of what to include, what not to do, and how to get that 500 word minimum needed to get 20,000 sim dollars.

First things first if you have a word processor make three different documents. If you don’t have one I would recommend going and acquiring one prior to beginning this process. If you do not wish to spend money on a program you can get programs like Open Office for free that will help you in this. You will use the first document as a basic outline to construct your articles from. The second document will be a list of the stallions you run into along with their major accomplishments. The third document will be a list of the owners that you encounter in writing the articles. The second and third documents are not only useful references but will save you time by allowing you to copy and paste instead of having to type everything out again.

Now to the basic article outline. The best thing to do is to start with the basic info of the race. It’s best to in the first sentence to say what the purse is, the name of the race, what kind of race it is (in other words is it non graded, Grade III, Grade II or Grade I?), who is it open to (meaning what age and what genders can be entered), and the entry fee to get a horse into the race. The next sentence should list the number of horses that are entered into the race at the time the article was written (depending on how close to the race date it is sometimes that amount can change before post time but don’t worry about that), how long the race is, over what surface it is on, and at what racetrack is it being held.

Now here comes the bulk of the article and also where the two lists will come in handy. First thing to do before writing about the horse as a whole is to list the name of the horse, who owns the horse, how many career starts it has and how many wins, shows, and places, it has had, and how much career earnings it has racked up. Here is an example using one of my horses:

Two Drink Limit – Owned by Star Girl Starts: 12-1-2-2 Earnings: $23,350

After that generally list the color of the horse and what gender it is. I also like to go and talk about the horse’s immediate bloodlines. This is where the list of stallions come in handy. What I do is keep the list alphabetically sorted including and depending on it’s career a multitude of info. This includes mentioning if it is a multiple graded stakes winner, is it a millionaire, a multi-millionaire (meaning its earnings during its career were equal to or greater than 2 million), or none of the above (some good horses never broke the million mark). Also if it won during Simmy awards during its career I mention it’s a champion of so and so, or if the horse was Horse of the Year, and in the rare cases if it was named champion in more than one place (in this case it is easiest to refer to the horse as a multi-champion), and if he’s a Hall of Famer mention that. Most of the times the mares are easier just requiring a mention of who there sire was, in the cases that you do stumble upon broodmares with impressive careers make sure to mention their accomplishments in the same manner that the sire’s was.

After going over the bloodlines it is best to go over the general gist of the horse’s career thus far. Include running style and whether or not they’ve run in stakes company before and if so whether or not they’ve competed in graded stakes yet if it is applicable. It’s always good to look and perhaps mention whether or not the horse has gone the distance of the race or over that surface before (this pops up sometimes with transitions to All Weather more than anything). Mention how there last race was, mention how their last go(s) over that distance was (if that is applicable). Talk about how their performances in stakes company have gone so far and if they seem to be improving.

Do this with each of the horses and you should be up to 500 words without a problem. However avoid 2-year-old stake races early in the year. Most of these horses will only be on their first or second start so getting information on them to write about will be more difficult than say of a three-year-old. When you get further into the year it can be done since by then the 2-year-olds will generally at least have a few starts under their belts especially the ones usually pointing to the Steward’s Cup, they usually will have at least a couple of good races under their belt. The older horses are some of the best to write articles on because even the four-year-olds generally have quite a few races behind them to get you writing. There are exceptions but most of the time you can get up to a thousand words at time with the races open the older horses.

Keep all of this in mind and you will be bound to have some money to carry you on for quite a while.

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