Nomination fees are a necessary evil of horse racing that helps to identify the horses that owners feel are the best of the best and allow for the giant prize pools seen at the championship level of racing.  We take every dollar (and then some) that is paid for nomination fees and roll it into prize pools for our championship horses to run for.

Continue reading

New Player Guide:

The first thing you will notice is that there are a lot of things to do, but don't get overwhelmed, we will guide you through the initial phase of racing your horses. This is a recommended guide that players may follow to help guide them on their way to creating a dominant racing and/or breeding stable.

Step 1: Your First Horse(s)

First things first, you will need horses to race. We have given you 3 vouchers with which you may purchase up to 3 new horses to compete in our Beginner division [Grade 3]. In order to use them follow these instructions

• Navigate to Market > Sales Ring or click here to open in a new window
• Choose the Beginner[Grade 3] Tab
• Note that your horse will randomly assigned a gender; hence the mixed designation.
• Select a horse name, this may be changed up until the horse records it's first start.
• Choose the number of horses - you should select between 1 and 3, anything more than that will deduct additional funds from your balance.
• Select the number of vouchers you wish to use, we recommend you using 1 voucher for each horse you are creating, thus equaling a free purchase.
• The total cost will update to reflect the number of horses selected to purchase with the credit for the vouchers used deducted.
• Once your order is complete, click 'purchase horses' and the sales ring agent will locate horses that meet your criteria and send them to your stable! You will notice that a link to the horses will appear below which you may click on to view your newly purchased horses.

Optional Step: Deposit Bonus

As a new player you are eligible for our $100 bonus for your first deposit.  This bonus money can be put towards new horses, horse evaluation, breeding evaluation, and much more!  

Step 2: Training

Now that we have a horse or three in our stables we should find out what kind of runners they are! This is probably the most difficult task for all trainers and while easy to learn, is very difficult to master. The instructions below will give you a tutorial on how to train your horses for the first time.

• Open up your stable page via Stable > My Horses or click here to open in a new window - This is probably the most frequently visited page by all our players as it provides a great overview of your currently active horses.
• Training is an important element of the game that not only improves the fitness of your horse (increases stamina bar), identifying a horses likes and dislikes, but it also helps with horse growth.
• You will notice the second to last column contains a horseshoe (green if training is available for the day, red if not) which we will click on to being training an individual horse.
• You will now be able to setup your training runs, note that new horses receive 4x (8 vs 2) the normal amount of training runs for the first day of their existence to help owners identify their preferences faster.
• Now this is an area that varies greatly from trainer to trainer as to how to go about discovering how far a horse should run and over what surfaces and conditions it likes to race. We recommend to new players that they make their initial train with these settings:
• Surface + Conditions: All
• Distance: shorter - such as 1000m. The shorter distances are easier to evaluate and every horse should be able to cover the 1000m without becoming tired.
• As horses run out of stamina they become tired and run significantly slower.
• Runs: 4
• Why 4? because there are 4 unique combinations of surfaces and conditions and this will allow you to run once over each surface at one single distance and perhaps get a grasp on which ones the horse prefers.
• Click on train

Your results will be listed, with a summary first, followed by detailed information below. For now you can ignore the growth charts, but can find more information on that in the help section.

Step 3: How do I know what a good time is?

Training times are going to be slower than race times (most of the time) and so it is important to not compare them evenly (usually you want to subtract a second or two) to race times.  At this point you have multiple options to evaluate the times:

• When you look at n individual horses training records you will notice there is a section that gives you a star rating.  Those stars indicate which percentage of the training times the horse is in (globally).   These should not be used as absolutes but they do provide a guidance for race placement and about the class of the horse.
• Use the leaderboard times for the 2yr olds under leaderboards
• Compare against other horses in your stable - since you presumably only have 3 this can be challenging, but you can use stable > daily training report to view a summary
• The third option is to look at maiden race times and compare against that, this is the preferred method
• Alternatively you could goto the track and ask other players to try and compare your times
• The final option is to use our premium features for a more detailed analysis of your stable's horses
• We strongly suggest purchasing premium access for your stable.  This will provide you with summarized information about your stable and the ability to automatically train your horses.

Once you have analyzed and decided what surface(s) a horse prefers you should uncheck the boxes from the ones that don't match in your preferences filter and then click 'set preferences'. One note of caution, a horses preferences can certainly change as it ages so you will have to occasionally check to see how it progressing naturally. You also must note that training a horse on any given surface + condition (or going) may result in improvement by that horse up to it's maximum ability!

Step 4: FAQ

It is important that as you explore new features of the game or have questions that you refer to the FAQ.  This is a living document that is frequently updated with questions from our player base and will likely have an answer for you!

Step 5: Entering a Race

Now that you have the basics down and an understanding of your horse(s) the final step we will cover in this introduction is finding a race:

• There are multiple ways to find races for your horses, but we will start with the most basic. Open up the details on one of your newly trained horses and let's review the horse preferences section.
• The first thing that you must have is a 'category' of racing selected, they are as follows:
• Claimer: this is the easiest level of racing. A large majority of horses will end up at this level
• Stakes: This is the middle level of major racing and contains the bulk of the racing schedule (besides claiming) and is comprised of better than average horses
• Championship: This division is filled with the best of the best and these races are generally either Invitationals, Derby's, or Championships. The championship schedule is detailed in our help section.
• One of these division must be selected in order for your horse to find any races, often multiple divisions are chosen.
• Next we must select distances, often horses have a range of distances they can run. This is very trainer specific and will vary greatly from person to person and horse to horse.
• Our final step in preparation is that we must have at least one surface + condition (going) selected in order to find matching races, so use your horses training times to help identify those.
• Now that we have our preferences set, we can click on the RACE button and it will bring up a list of races matching our criteria - find one that you like and click enter, and then confirm if that is what you want.

After confirming your race entry you will be directed back to the enter race page and you will see a list of other options from your stable that match the conditions of the race.  If you are a premium member you will also see the top training times and race times for your stable of horses who are eligible at these conditions.

• One important thing to note about this page is that to the right of the 'enter race' you will see icons, a D (which means the distance matches the horses preferences) and a S (which means that the surface type is a match).

Continue reading

Have you ever wanted to know what it's like to be a race horse owner and/or trainer?  Sport of Kings offers you the chance to do just that in an easy to learn and fun to play environment.  The thrill of owning and racing a digital horse is best summed up by one of our loyal players.

" Horse racing is the best game in the world. I have had the privilege of taking part in some of the greatest racing in America in the 22 years I have been soulfully attached to this great industry. So to find a game to match the excitement you have when you actually stand in that winners circle for the first or the last time it is the greatest feeling in the world, and if I get that feeling playing this simulation/game then you are doing your job. Well done guys. We just need to bring this simulated joy to all the other racing fans."

--Parks Racing 10/21/2013

We allow you to either buy an existing horse or breed your very own horse from existing bloodlines many of which will be familiar to modern day handicappers.  You are then responsible for the exciting process of discovering the horses ability and preferences.  Much like real life this can be a simple process or one that goes on for the life of the horse.  Our horses have a life of their own and evolve and mature in a very realistic manner which makes every horse a thrilling and unique adventure.  One key to making the game enjoyable is that we operate on a 3x timeline to real life, meaning that each season (1 year of game time) takes only 4 real life month.   This means far less wait time between races (the average layoff is 7-14 days) and an opportunity for a fresh crop of horses to hit the track every 4 months.

The races themselves are realistic simulations that allow horses to showcase their running style preferences and tendencies.  We have horses that simply need the lead to win while others will sit back off the pace and look to make one big run at the wire.  We provide detailed data that you as the owner are able to dig through to try and solve the puzzle that is each horse or you can simply use the training times to try and place your horse.  You are able to be as detailed and complex or as simple as you choose, it's all up to you.

Apart from racing we offer owners many other things to do including private sales, public auctions, and breeding.  Breeding is one of our most popular features that allows owners to continue on the bloodlines of their champion horses.  The unique horse development that we offer includes a sophisticated bloodline based breeding system that has no equal.  Breeding and our horse evolution are key features to our game and make us very unique in the online horse racing game industry.

Come join the over 13,000 registered players and take your spot in the starting stall for the thrill of a lifetime.

Continue reading

Breeding

This is a key element to the long term success and enjoyment of this game and therefore we have dedicated much of the last 30 days working on improvement the interface and user experience when it comes to breeding and breeding related items.  We know just how important this area is and want it to be an enjoyable and engaging experience.

The first thing of note is that we have added a totally unique feature in that owners can now sell breeding rights to their horses privately to other owners.  This means they do not have to make their breeding stock publicly available in order to allow other owners to breed to them.

Breeding Page

We have updated the breeding page to not only include user selectable filters such as distance or surface preferences but very useful description and explanations of the basics.  Allowing users to search by the distance of the sire or broodmare allows for much quicker discovery of the desired horse.








Sire / Mare Standings Page


This is probably one of the most important pages we have when it comes to identifying a sire (we have a similar page for mares) for your breeding pairing.  There are all kinds of ways to filter this data and we expect players to spend hours combing through the data as the pools grow and breeding becomes a prominent feature of the game.  Each of these columns could be considered important and therefore they are each sortable.  We realize there is even more data that could be put on this page but we had to stop somewhere and the other information is available on the individual horse details page.  One feature that is brand new is the display of the surface (if it's been flagged as a turf horse you will see the turf symbol) and / or the distance preference badges.


Breeding Evaluator

This is often the final step before confirming a breeding and is one of our most popular features.  It has seen a tremendous amount of work go into redesigning the interface.  We have also added a number of filter options that make identifying a horse significantly faster.








We are constantly striving to improve the game and your experience playing it.  We look forward to seeing what you do with the updated breeding features and hearing your feedback.

Until next time,
Admin

Continue reading

We have undergone some major changes in the past few months and training will resume in less than 48 hours on April 1, 2016.  Racing will resume on May 1, 2106 (30 days) with thousands of dollars up for grabs.  If you have never played, come give the most exciting and enjoyable horse racing game on the market a try.  If you have already played, come back and see all the things that have improved.  We will see YOU at the track.

Core Changes

• Purses are now fixed and do not change based on the number of entrants or fee paid.
• Minimum number of horses has been raised from 3 to 5. This number is now the multiple of entry fees that the purse will be based off of. So a minimum number of 5 horses means the purse will be 5x the entry fee. Contests that fail to meet the required minimum will be invalidated and any entries refunded.
• Should a race (and hopefully most will) exceed the minimum number of entrants we will offer players a rebate on their entry fee. A page with these details will be released in the upcoming days.
• The race fees have been reduced by 1% total. We removed the house take from the calculations while the jockey fee has been adjusted up to compensate.
• Super Sprint division has been eliminated.
• Nominations will now be done each and every season rather than for the lifetime of the horse. The fees have been reduced accordingly. We are working on finalizing a plan for discounting horses previously nominated.
• Reduced the number of weather conditions from 4 to 2. 
• The number of training runs per day has been reduced from 3 to 2. This is in response to the reduced number of combinations and in an effort to keep the database manageable.

New Features

• Divisional Racing has been implemented into the regular schedule. This is handicapped racing based on the number of wins and is in place for senior horses.
• Added maidens have been introduced in the mix. Grade 1 will feature $20 added while Grade 3 will have $6.
• Qualifiers will feature purses with split added and bonus. This is now clearly identified. Each G1 qualifier will have $25 in added cash and $25 of BC. Grade 3 will have $25 in bonus credits and no added cash. The finals are TBD but each will be comprised (in part at least) of cash.

Other Changes

• Premium access, for those that had it, has been extended 4 months from the previous expiration date (meaning no lost time).
• Removed one of the classic distances to bring each division to an equal 3.
• Annual non-championship stakes races have been pulled in favor of returning cash prizes to the championship series and maidens.
• The added races, such as the juvenile maiden added, will show up under stakes rather than championship.

Viewer Updates / Progress

We are continuing to make progress on our new viewer.  This is indeed a massive project but you can see our most recent progress updates here.

A more immersive and complete stand alone viewer experience

New AI for the horses and jockeys

Continue reading

The season ending championships are finally here to mark the end of the 4th season at SportofKings.us.  We could not be happier with the way things have progressed as we are continuing to see new stables find their way to the winners circle in the top level racing and fuller fields.  

The finals will be held on the 29th and 30th will be two action packed days which will see over 40 championship finals go off.  The juvenile division, as always, will be the most anticipated battles as these horses are finally hitting their stride and looking to lock horns with the best of the best in their respective division.

View the Breeders Cup Championships for Grade 1

View the Breeders Cup Championships for Grade 3

Updates / Notes

There are two new programmed racing series coming online for the 5th season.

The first is the Legends series which will offer a chance for older horses to strut their stuff outside the championship division.


The second series, which was also essential, is a weekly series of maiden and graduation GUARANTEED purse races which will be held for both juvenile and 3+ year olds. This series will be run on a strict distance rotation so there will be regular opportunities for all horses and owners should find full fields in most of these races.

Continue reading

Grade 3 Breeders Cup Preview

Juveniles

Turf Marathon

This race features a full field of 15 from ten different stables.  The field appears to be a balanced group of two year olds, including a number of maidens that would love for their first trip to

Sussex Montjeu

the winners circle to be at the Breeders Cup.  Logans Run from Precious Stable looks to be the class of the field if you ignore the last two races.  She won those two qualifiers by 24 combined lengths and posted lifetime top speed ratings consecutively.  She has not gotten much of a layoff and picked up additional weight from a win just a week ago in a non championship race.  The sidley stud sends out a Sussex Montjeu, a son of Montjeu, who is another bright eyed competitor but got absolutely thumped in his last race.  It is unclear what happened here but expect him to rebound and be near at the finish.  As far as the maidens go, Crazee Syko posted a very nice work best of six that day over today's distance of  1 1/2m.  He has a real chance to hit the board here.

Turf Super Sprint

This sprint will be contested over 4 furlongs (800m) on what is expected to be a wet, yielding surface.  Precious stable's brings in two horses, each on a two win streak that will look to bring her home a Breeders Cup Trophy.  Chief No Sack and Coolmore are both geldings that have shown a knack for getting to the line first.  Chief No Sack appears to be the better of the two with nearly 5 times the earnings of his stablemate and comes in with back to back wins in qualifiers.  One horse that has caught the eye of many clockers is Thunder Road, a maiden from Micks Heroes who posted a wicked 52 3/5 work , best of seven on Apr 9.  This has yet to show the ability to bring that kind of speed to the track but would be right in contention if he could.  Given the trainers history of getting the best out of his horses I must mention Bob Baffert and his entry, Indian Outlaw who will look to build on the most recent race which was a win in a 4f qualifier.  He managed to keep his nose in front of Indian Outlaw for the entirety of the last race and a repeat might just be good enough to win.

Super Sprint

An overflow field is expected for this one and includes a star in the making with Bull Star from Double Star.  In a slightly unorthodox move the trainer entered the horse in a non championship race and picked up a win , adding an additional two pounds putting him at a high weight of 134 lbs for the final;  those two pounds could prove very costly in such a competitive race.  Ravensdale Rise sends out Raven Mitch, a consistent son of Afleet, who will look to win his first championship caliber race in this loaded field.  He has managed three wins, all of them outside of the championship division however.

3yr Old Division

Turf Classic

Anfield Road's Spankme looks to be the likely favorite coming off a victory at the exact distance and surface condition back on Apr. 7th.  He defeated Carry on Thin Boy in that effort but has finished behind Sussex Miller in every other race.  The distance appears to be a concern for Sussex Miller who appears better suited for the mile or mile and a eight distances.  

Sprint

This is another highly competitive race that will be determined by a thin margin.  It features horses that are familiar with each other and quality trainers across the board.  Unsung Hero

Unsung Hero

comes into this race on five race losing streak but was privately purchased after the last effort by Black Cat Racing and the barn change may do this horse some good.  Long Sermon comes in for Precious Stable with a two race win streak having beaten many of these two races back.  This filly by Pulpit seems to really enjoy the mud and with her deep closing style could sit a good trip here.    I like Unsung Hero in this spot, the problem is that he was defeated by Long Sermon at this exact distance and surface last time out.

Continue reading