Virtual Horse Racing News

Season 15 is just around the corner (May 15, 2019) and we've seen some dramatic events and features unveiled for the upcoming year.  We continue to see new stables come and make their respective marks on our leader-boards, many are competing for championships in their very first season!  Here is a list of important changes that have made their way to the game for the upcoming season.

• Introduction of breeding awards and bonuses!
  • Breeding Awards / Bonus - this will be multi-factored. We are going to look at awarding a bonus equal to a fraction of the purse (paid in BC for now) to the breeding stable (non sales ring horses). We are also going to have a season long leaderboard that will begin season 15. Starting season 16 we will implement a cash prize to the stable that produces the most earnings as a breeder. [Note this will not impact purses or payouts but is an additional payout]
• Complete schedule overhaul and revamp
• Season long schedule rolled out at the beginning of the year!
• Significant improvements on the cadence of opportunities for horses and improved earning potentials for horses.
• Official introduction of Divisional racing which will allow for far more winning opportunities for older horses.
• Championship finals have been renamed to Champions Cup

I just wanted to provide everyone with a status update of just how successful season 11 was for the site. 

While we essentially broke even in terms of profitability we were able to pay out over $22,000 in non-bonus earnings last season alone! That's a whopping 78% increase in prize money from the previous season. That puts us on target to potentially break 100k for 2018 which is a huge step forward for the site. 

The championship series is an astounding value for players at this point in time.
There were $900 in tokens used last season to enter the various qualifiers along with $1,300 in nominations for a total of $2,200 used towards the series. That's roughly 22% of the $10,029.55 that was paid out, simply an outstanding value and a great reason for anyone to get involved.

Top Stable
 Anfield Road $6,717  

Horse Data
We had the largest two year old crop of horses since changing to a subscription format with 1581 sales ring horses and 720 home breds (2301). The homebreds earned an average of $12.99 with a whopping $29.88 per starter! Those are massive numbers when you consider most of those horses have at least 2 more seasons of racing to go. You will not find another site with those kind of figures.


Thanks to everyone involved and we look forward to continuing to improve what we can offer you as an entertainment experience.

Season 11 sees the return of two iconic classic distance races covering a mile and a quarter on dirt.  The K L Patton stakes for juvenile's and the SOK Pacific Classic.

The purses for the races will be $440 for the Pacific Classic and the $300 for the K L Patton.  These are sure to be hotly contested and are perfectly positioned as a final prep before the Champions Cup finals.

Sport of Kings is the first online horse racing game to offer a subscription model that opens the door for players of all budgets!  We currently offer subscriptions from $14.99 all the way up to $199.99.  In addition to being a realistic simulation with real race times and scenarios, our virtual races are always free to enter!  Beginning in July, we have opened up an item shop that will allows our players to purchase upgrades and tokens that open up races with larger purses.  

Return of the big purses!

We have introduced token racing where owners can use tokens to unlock access to certain special types of races that have larger purses.  The tokens currently vary from $0.50 to $20.00 and help us provide even larger guaranteed purses.  The SOK Pacific Classic, the first major token race, is on the books and is sure to be a stellar affair with over $200 in purse money up for grabs.  

Subscriptions Explained

A subscription grants you access to enter any number of our free to enter races.  There are no entry fees for our races which means you should enter early and often.  The cost of the subscriptions are determined based on the number of active horses your stable can have at any one time.  In addition to all the great benefits, such as global statistics and rankings, players will also receive a bonus of tokens each month that they renew their subscription.  New players receive a full week of access upon signing up for the first time.  Our unique approach to the virtual horse racing game has set us apart and we look forward to providing you with the best in industry customer service experience.

March 17-19th

Group (Graded) racing makes it return this month with 3 races from Royal Ascot.  Each will be a top level handicapped race with $70 up for grabs in each.  Hurry and reserve your spot while there is still room in what is sure to be a competitive field.

See the Royal Ascot Racing Festival Schedule

We are about to complete the first season where every race is FREE to enter.  We have seen an increase in the number of horses entered into races and competition.  Beginning this season we will issue end of season awards for trainers and horses alike.

Trainer Awards

Trainer of the year

True Blue Stable ...

is the leading stable with $1,218 in wins this season.  He has put forth a tremendous effort winning maidens and open company races at a 13% clip.  In addition he has had success in all three age groups, proving that it's no fluke.  Congratulations are in order for this success and you can expect a number of stables to again be vying for this title.

Newcomer of the year

American Pharoah Stables  ...

has come on the scene in a big way.  He has 19 wins from 69 starts for an astounding 27% win rate.  Look for big things from this stable who has clearly been blessed with talented horses to go with their training skills.

Breeder of the year

 Anfield Road ...

takes the award for the top breeder this season with 18% of them winning and The Liverpool Way leading the way to the victory circle.  

Breakout trainer of the year

King of Thrones  ...

is not exactly new to the game but has had a breakout season with a number of qualifier wins.  He has a number of outstanding horses including Pope's Angel a filly by Fallen Angel out of Pope Alexander.

Horse Awards

Horse of the year

Bull Diamond ...

is the unquestioned horse of the year with Blessings being retired.  This six year old horse is a perfect 7 for 7 including the Champions Cup title for senior turf sprint.

Juvenile of the year

 Sherlock Holmes ...

from Black Cat Racing brings home the title this year.  This horse has 4 wins from 6 starts and has never been worse than second.  After starting his career with 4 wins from 4 starts, he has cooled off in the difficult qualifiers but one has to wonder if this is intentional.

Sire of the year

Pope Alexander ...

 is once again on top of the standings at the end of the season with his foals averaging over $100 in earnings each!  This makes the $15 stud fee seem an absolute bargain.

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