Feature Race | Auction | Breeding | General | Hall of Fame | Harness | Interviews | Mixed Breed | New Players | Racing | Site Updates | Steeplechasing | Steward's Cup | Triple Crown

Really - Horse Racing Is a Competition

Original article written by Regina Moore posted 13 years 4 weeks ago

In a competition, everything is against you from the start, for the mere reason that there’s others out there who want to win just as badly as you do. When you feel you’ve done every possible right thing, it’s a tough pill to swallow when somebody else defeats you, anyway. So, you start looking for reasons to explain the loss. In horse racing, the last thing anyone wants to admit is that the other stable’s horse was simply faster than their horse.

In SIM, there’s an ongoing parade of those who want to fix the fact that their horse lost. As though losses aren’t supposed to happen.

Over the years on the Forum, I’ve seen undefeated horses presented as a “problem” for other players to please solve, because they only won their last race by a head, or with a subpar speed figure, when they normally win easily. I’ve seen tough, hard-knocking horses presented because they only win two out of every three races, and so what, the player wants to know, are they doing wrong with equipment that causes them to lose one-third of the time? The horse is better than that! And then the youngster who doesn’t start out winning after showing greatness on the training track. What am I doing wrong? the owning player wants to know. And then there are those horses that have won three races in a row. They lose their next two. The owner can’t accept this. After winning three in a row, their horse has the SIM-given right to win every subsequent start. So please, fellow players, what are they doing wrong that caused the horse to lose after it was on a winning streak?

Other players tend to be very gracious in presenting possible “fixes”. Sometimes, they even appear to work, based upon follow-up posts.

But I think most losses by a good horse, or supposed-to-be good horse, can explained by one simple fact: Horse racing is a competition. The SIM demonstrates that wonderfully. No other player is going to step aside and let your horse win. That’s why undefeated horses (or participant in any sport) are such an enigma. They aren’t supposed to happen. And often, the rare times when they do occur, the strategy becomes a wimpy “try not to lose” rather than boldly trying to win.

In a full, twelve-horse SIM field, let’s say that all twelve horses have great bloodlines. All are wearing their most ideal equipment. All are racing on their favorite track condition. All are racing at their most favorite distance. All have a top-notch jockey. All are at the peak of their fitness and rest cycles. The fact is, eleven of those horses are going to lose that race. And those losses are going to have absolutely nothing to do with anything that was done wrong and needs to be fixed.

In a competition, especially when there’s up to twelve competitors per event, there’s a lot of unhappy people after the event is over. Only one joyful winner.

We all want to win. Winning feels so good that once we have a taste of it, we want to keep doing it over and over. And if we get so good at winning that it becomes mundane, then we want to win all the more impressively.

It’s a good thing to want more success; otherwise, there wouldn’t be any point in continuing to play. But there’s a difference between a healthy desire for more, more, more, and feeling that the lack of such means one is doing something wrong.

A competition is a competition for a reason: to see who wins when all are trying their hardest. If one’s horse has a right to win the race before it even starts, then there wouldn’t be any purpose in having the race in the first place.

The fact is, no horse has a predetermined right to victory. Victory has to be sought in a separate effort every time each horse runs. The glory is in that effort.

That glory loses its luster when something about the effort needs to be "fixed" afterwards.


Back to Racing articles

Copyright © 2024 SIMHorseRacing.com | Legal