Horse Racing Simulation Best of the Decade

Top of the Stretch Horse Racing Simulation Best of the Decade: 2000-2009 Copyright Lon Whitehead, 2011 Distributed by Skyline Services Inc. All Rights Reserved 1 Welcome to Top of the Stretch, a horse racing simulation! Top of the Stretch allows you to create your own thoroughbred horse races, matching runners that never met in real life in order to see what might have happened if they had met on the track. The horses will perform according to their actual strengths and weaknesses. For a good number of years, I helped a popular game company rate horses for their game. Despite the fact that the game was fun to play, I was constantly frustrated by the fact that it played like a GAME rather than like a SIMULATION. The final results of the races were realistic enough, but the method used to get to the final results left a lot to be desired. I tried other games, but none of them was quite what I was looking for. Most required you to act as the jockey, maneuvering small tokens around a racetrack and pretending that you were dealing with the horses in traffic while taking turns rolling the dice for each horse and moving one horse at a time down the track. Too many times, the only goal was to get to the lead as soon as possible and see if your horse could stay there. You won’t find that kind of ‘action’ in Top of the Stretch. As a longtime fan, regular bettor, and for the last several years, thoroughbred owner, I wanted something that played quickly yet gave you the feeling that you were watching a real race unfold. I wanted to give the gamer some idea of WHY the race was unfolding the way that it is – what strengths and/or weaknesses of the horses were causing the result that you were seeing. At the same time, thoroughbred horse racing is not always predictable. As a bettor, some days you think you have it all figured out. Other times, it seems that you can go weeks without being able to pick a winner. A simulation of horse racing needed to be both logical, yet allow for a range of results. I think that’s what’s presented in Top of the Stretch. The Quickplay game versus the Fullplay Game There are some great computer horse racing games out there today. The graphics are fantastic! Yet, I miss the ‘old days’ of gaming at the card table and using my imagination to “see” the competitors. If you grew up during the 1960s and 1970s playing the popular sports games of the time, you know what I mean. Tabletop card and dice games aren’t for everyone, but 2 it’s what I grew up with and what I still prefer. Even the computer sports games that I play are mostly text-based simulations – some of them computerized versions of those same games I used to play as a kid! Top of the Stretch has two different playing versions. The Fullplay version of the game will only take 10 to 15 minutes to complete when you’ve become accustomed to the flow of the game. You’ll get to see where each horse is in relation to the others during each segment of the game. You’ll also see the pace of the race develop, and how it will help and hurt certain horses. Turning for home, everything that has unfolded in the race to that point now comes into play as the horses thunder down the stretch and you determine the final results (thus, the name Top of the Stretch). I was slow to come around to the type of game commonly referred to as ‘Quick Result’ games. It always seemed that you rolled a few dice and – Presto! – you had a final result, without any idea of WHY you had that particular final result. In the Quickplay version of Top of the Stretch, you’ll still get a feeling for the horses’ strengths and weaknesses, and how they determine the outcome of the race. You’ll still see the pace of the race unfold and how it increases or diminishes each horse’s chances of winning. You’ll also still have the ‘build up’ to the stretch run, where the final results will be determined. I’ve started a Yahoo! Group for Top of the Stretch, that you may join and can post messages or tweaks or your own charts. It’s found at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/topofthestretchhorseracing/ I’ll also be posting minor updates there as well as some race scoresheets for real life races that you can use along with the game. All Top of the Stretch products are available via pdf file download at http://www.topofthestretchgame.com. Printed versions are available at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/skylineservices. You may also reach me at [email protected] and pass along your thoughts or ideas. I sincerely hope you enjoy Top of the Stretch! Lon Whitehead 3 Selecting the horses for Best of Decade: 2000-2009 There’s a certain amount of subjectivity that goes into putting together any ‘Best of’ set. Yes, selecting the first few horses for each season is relatively easy; the Horse of the Year Award winner, the Kentucky Derby Winner, the top earning horse, etc. Logic dictates that all of the divisional Eclipse Award winners should be included, as well as the winners of the other Triple Crown events. And, winners of Breeders Cup races should probably make it, too. Is that enough? In putting together the horses for this set, I settled on presenting 48 horses for each year. There was no magic formula, unless you consider that when horses are presented 6-to-a-page in the ‘card’ section, that the number should be divisible by 6. All of the horses that achieved the feats listed in the first paragraph made the cut. Then, I looked for the horses that not only achieved the most on the track, but also tried to find a mix of horses that best represented horse racing for that year, being careful to represent as many different racing divisions as possible. Sometimes, if the call was close, I excluded a horse who had another (sometimes multiple) season(s) represented in this set and included a horse who had only one stellar season. Sometimes, it just came down to a personal choice as to which horse I thought would be most appreciated by gamers. So the answer is – there was no specific formula. I hope that your favorites all made the cut, and I apologize if any of them did not. The Decade in Racing: 2000-2009 There were a lot of great stories in the 10 years represented in this set. Some of those stories were heroic, some tragic, some both. There’s a lot of talk that horse racing isn’t the great sport that it used to be, but when you look at the individual horses included in this set, you’d be hard pressed to make such an argument. No, there weren’t any Triple Crown winners, the standard of excellence by which horse racing has measured the best for nearly a hundred years. But just look at what the decade did have: 4 • A back-to-back winner of the Breeders Cup Classic (Tiznow) • A back-to-back winner of Horse of the Year (Curlin) • The first filly Belmont Stakes winner (Rags to Riches) • A South American bred horse brought to America that dominated racing for 12 months, including wins in the Breeders Cup Classic and the Dubai World Cup (Invasor) • The first undefeated Kentucky Derby winner since 1977 (Smarty Jones) • Perhaps the greatest rivalry in racing since Affirmed & Alydar, albeit one that was never settled on the racetrack (Rachel Alexandra & Zenyatta) • Two of the most heroic and tragic horses of our generation (Barbaro and Eight Belles) No, the decade didn’t lack for stories. And, despite the general conception, it didn’t lack for talent. How about Ghostzapper, and his string of annihilating performances for trainer Bobby Frankel? How about 11-time Grade 1 winner Azeri? How about Mineshaft, or Saint Liam? How about ageless wonders The Tin Man or Kona Gold? There were many talented runners during this period. Some of them gained the public’s eye in an evermore crowded world of sporting events, but most of them were well known and recognized only by those who follow the sport on more than a casual basis. That’s what has really changed over the last several decades. The stars and the talents are still there – they just don’t have the public following or recognition that they did in an era when racing was more prevalent and had fewer competitors. As you flip through the pages of this and look at the names and statistics, I hope that you’ll have the same feeling that I got when researching each of these thoroughbreds. That feeling was “Wow – this horse was GOOD!”. 5 Some thoughts and notes regarding the ratings There are 480 horses in this set, all possessing various talents with different strengths and weaknesses. Some are truly great, others are just really, really good. If you’ve ever purchased a ‘Best of’ or ‘Hall of Fame’ set for another game, you probably already know that having these greats competing solely against each other is not the best way to appreciate their individual talents. While many of these horses faced each other on the racetrack from time- to-time, none of them faced fields consistently filled with horses of the caliber seen in this set.

Load more