So, who bets on virtual horses? Do you use virtual money, and if a virtual horse falls and breaks a leg, does it simply get deleted instead of being shot (as in days of western movies)? To answer seriously, there seems to be several type of games inside the virtual horse racing world.
There are those that serve as simply another way to weigh up the odds, place your bet and sit back and cheer on your chosen steed for the day and hope they do you proud. Others take a much more in-depth approach and take you into the world of a horse racing trainer. You may have seen this type of thing with other sports, where you become the coach, train and build your virtual team, then go to play virtual matches against all manner of computer generated teams.
Well this is the same thing, only you get to be a race horse owner and carefully build your stable of runners, taking great effort to train them properly before choosing which races and meetings you will enter. Many sites are now set up for this with the advancement of software technology providing a 3D experience of seeing your own horse strive for first place as it pounds down the final furlong.
If this gets your juices flowing, then you are certainly not alone. The sheer number of sites offering this chance to manage your digital mares and stallions is increasing all the time. You can even breed your own foals, trace the bloodlines and send your old horses out to stud when their racing careers are over. No detail is too small or complicated to leave out as you develop and train your virtual thoroughbreds until the proud day comes when you can take them to a 3D race track for their first-ever race!
The real draw of this virtual world to the would-be owners and breeders who know they will never get a ‘real’ shot at the races, is the fact that it is not real money that changes hands at the end of the day.
So, if the thought of virtually grooming your one-year-old thoroughbred and calling it by your favorite name is something you feel your life has been missing, then check out the online virtual horse racing world. It may not completely eplace the smell and sweat of real competition in the great outdoors, but it comes very close and you stand a chance of winning and even a chance of winning real prizes!
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