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King Kent Claims Crown
Original article written by Shannon Hunt posted 10 months 1 week agoSim horse racing success can be measured in many different ways - bankroll, percentages, stakes results, freaky foal gallops, general popularity among one's peers - but in a game where the objective is to win, total wins is arguably the dominant factor. You can cheese a nice win percentage by only racing the cream in your crop and restricting your cumulative entries; you can make a lot of money entering hundreds of fillers every week; but to rack up a high win count, you need to combine grueling quantity with precision quality. To rack up enough wins to make a splash on the leaderboards, you need to do this season after season without slump or pause. It's an impressive accomplishment.
For years, perhaps even since the dawn of time, the number one spot on the win list has been held securely by Laura Ferguson. Starting out in year 11, it took nine sim years to get her 1000 win trophy, but only four more to get to 2000 (I imagine there were fewer races running back then in general). And then she just kept rolling. It would take way too much work for me to calculate when exactly she moved into the top spot, but with over 31,800 wins to date after roughly 129,000 starts, and most competitors several thousand wins behind her, it's safe to say she's been a dominant force. Some call her the queen of the sim, and not for nothing; the moniker is well earned.
And then along came a guy (or possibly a machine) called Kent Saunders. He didn't get started until year 34, but by year 39 he hit his first 1000 wins, and the ball just kept rolling faster and faster. Good for him, but nobody is catching Laura at this point. Right?
In "just" 104,000 starts, crammed into a much shorter sim career, suddenly a coup was in progress. It took a consistent lifetime average win rate of 30.5% (across that many starts, my dude, HOW) but the threat to the crown was real. Kent sprinted to the top as if his horses had rocket boots strapped on, Laura still picking up wins too but the gap ever closing. On Saturday, year 64 week 13 day 6, Kent had tied Laura's record. The following Monday (this morning), three more wins in Asia secured the lead. The impossible was made possible, and the throne has a new occupant.
Will Laura fight back and reclaim the title? We'll see. What is clear is that nobody else is anywhere near these two titans right now, but that anyone *could* make that climb, just like Kent did. It'll take a helluva effort, though. Those trainer of the year trophies in these two trophy cabinets aren't just for show (well, technically they are, that's literally all a trophy is for, but they've been earned with pixel pony sweat, blood, and tears).
Congratulations Kent on the astonishing achievement, and long live the king!
(With the disclaimer that I absolutely will turn on you the moment someone else starts getting close, I'm always rooting for the underdog and I am a sucker for fictional horse drama. But in the meantime! Congrats!)