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Official Horse Race Game Thread (8 Viewers)

I had a blast playing this game for the first time with @Josh Kifer and his crew. I've been following this thread closely and have been really curious to play it. It's better than advertised!

This entire thread is amazing and super informative. I learned a lot by playing this with Josh and reading the variations in this thread. I'm planning on playing with the following tweaks: I'll report back with the results. I'm super excited to play this again.
  • One person rolls all scratches. Everyone with the scratched horse pays the appropriate penalty
    • This is how it was played at the game below. Went really smoothly.
  • Player who rolls the winning dice roll collects a 'Jockey Prize' (1 unit from each player)
  • I like the idea of everyone having the same number of cards so I'll experiment with this a bit more. Maybe have a non-player hand play the remaining cards. Those winnings get carried over to the next race.
@wonderpuddle - you and your crew should feel proud for infecting the entire forum with this amazing game. I'm curious - how did you guys first discover the game?

horseytime.jpg
 
RadicusScout said:
@wonderpuddle - you and your crew should feel proud for infecting the entire forum with this amazing game. I'm curious - how did you guys first discover the game?

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Thanks a ton! I’m super happy the horse race game caught on with so many players. It’s such a blast (and I’m not just saying that because I won half the pot and the jockey fee with 55 last night LOL):
B238D367-1A89-4DBF-8C1D-3327B88BB096.jpeg

To be honest, finding the game was a total fluke. I had this little battery powered horse race toy that basically vibrates and moves the horses down the track:
469CE853-E59C-438E-B91B-7804F8A49561.jpeg

I thought it would be fun to start betting on horse races on poker night, but one of the horses included with my track had a manufacturing defect so I went on Amazon looking to maybe buy a new set and came across the fineni board when I searched for “horse race game.” That looked way more fun than my little vibrating toy track so I ordered a board and the rest is history.
 
I played this recently at a friends house and I'm hooked. I'll commit to reading 24 pages of this madness, but is there a TLDR someone could provide for:

  • recommended board
  • common rules and/or tweaks people have done
  • accessories needed (besides chips!)
  • anything else?!
Thanks!
 
This thread is great!! Ya'll have shared good info & suggestions. Glad I found this forum. I saw this game 2 years ago in the retail shop at Church Hill Downs & regret not buying it. Would have had no problem traveling back with a heavy box since I was driving back across the Country. I instantly thought of Sigma Derby & that is my all time favorite. I mean the old school one from the late 80's. Dirty quarters, lots of yelling with strangers, & beers for hours? The BEST!! There used to be a couple at a casino in South Lake Tahoe. My best friend & I would drive up there for the weekend just to play Sigma. Since they rid of them (tragic!!), Tahoe life is not the same. And I don't venture to Vegas enough to enjoy the only 1 left in a casino in the U.S.. This game does the trick! Then, my Brother brought over this game & I nearly fell off my chair!!!

Awhile back I bought the Fineni pine one & happy with this choice. Not warped & I prefer the better made horses & painted text. If I want it pretty, I could stain the wood but, not a big a deal to me. Function trumps here.

After playing a hand full of times with 2 players & 4 players, I'm ready to increase the fun even more. So my Cousins, the guys play poker every month. Us girls want in on the fun but most don't want to learn poker, including myself. I'm a craps/roulette girl. So, I planned a night (this Friday) & the girls seem excited. There will be 6 of us. This first night we will play lower stakes with basic rules & keep it simple. 1ST = $0.25, 2ND = $0.50, 3RD = $0.75, 4TH = $1 for scratch horses. $0.25 chips all around & ante to enter each race. To make it more fun, I will add in some side bets & Jockey purse. Again, ya'll have come up with good ones. As the girls get the hang of it, will add more & increase the stakes.

Bring on the bets, drinks, & shit talking! Cheers ya'll!!!
 
Wow, this has been quite a read (I skimmed through all 24 pages in the past hour or so). I had no idea this game existed until this morning, and now I'm browsing Amazon to see which one I want (I know that sentiment has been expressed many times in this thread). A few thoughts and questions I have. I'm sure I've probably missed answers to these in my quick read-through.
  1. At higher player counts (say 8 or 9 players), have you seen many people lose all their cards due to scratches? I know a Jockey pot would still be open to them (if you play that way), but it still seems rough to sit through a whole race with no cards.
  2. I'm thinking of using a D12 for the scratches (ignoring any 1's rolled), to give us a greater chance of hitting those numbers on the ends. Has anyone done this? Although, I know it's all random anyway.
  3. There are a lot of other brands on Amazon that are cheaper than the Fineni board, at about half the price. Is there any reason to look at these or is the price for the Fenini still generally worth it?
 
jkoclanis67 said:
Wow, this has been quite a read (I skimmed through all 24 pages in the past hour or so). I had no idea this game existed until this morning, and now I'm browsing Amazon to see which one I want (I know that sentiment has been expressed many times in this thread). A few thoughts and questions I have. I'm sure I've probably missed answers to these in my quick read-through.
  1. At higher player counts (say 8 or 9 players), have you seen many people lose all their cards due to scratches? I know a Jockey pot would still be open to them (if you play that way), but it still seems rough to sit through a whole race with no cards.
  2. I'm thinking of using a D12 for the scratches (ignoring any 1's rolled), to give us a greater chance of hitting those numbers on the ends. Has anyone done this? Although, I know it's all random anyway.
  3. There are a lot of other brands on Amazon that are cheaper than the Fineni board, at about half the price. Is there any reason to look at these or is the price for the Fenini still generally worth it?
Click to expand...
Not sure if you seen my version but earlier in the thread there's a bunch of posts how I use every single card and a D6 number 0 through 5 and a D8 numbered 1 through 8
 
IaHawk said:
I played this recently at a friends house and I'm hooked. I'll commit to reading 24 pages of this madness, but is there a TLDR someone could provide for:

  • recommended board
  • common rules and/or tweaks people have done
  • accessories needed (besides chips!)
  • anything else?!
Thanks!
Click to expand...
It doesn't seem as though anyone answered your questions...

Yeah there's some nuggets in this thread but it is long.

Recommended board? I made my own but there are several retailers on the web that are easily found via a Google search. Acrosstheboard.com has the original I believe.

Accessories? Cards, dice, horses and people are about all you need. The horses can be bought separately at the Across the Board website.

Anything else? Not that I can think of. It's pretty basic in terms of equipment requirements.
 
Has anyone ever played with a rule, or some variation, that when you are rolling for scratched horses if you roll a number that would eliminate someone's last card(s), you would have a re-roll? This way it keeps all players invested in the game.
 
jkoclanis67 said:
Has anyone ever played with a rule, or some variation, that when you are rolling for scratched horses if you roll a number that would eliminate someone's last card(s), you would have a re-roll? This way it keeps all players invested in the game.
Click to expand...
Try it and see what happens.
I think that could end badly with nobody winning.
 
jkoclanis67 said:
I'm not following. Why would nobody win? All potential winning cards would still be out on the table, and each person would have at least one number in front of them.
Click to expand...
I think it’s all part of the fun in the game.. it happens. I wanted to implement that if you roll a double 3 times in a row you can take someone’s card. We’ve gotten close to doing that but hasn’t happened :ROFL: :ROFLMAO:
 
I make them play the race with no cards. However, I also use a card drafting system, so they are partially responsible for the cards they had in their hand. Additionally, I have uses for the kings, aces, and jokers, so that player can still manipulate the rave and still go for the jockey pot.
 
jkoclanis67 said:
I'm not following. Why would nobody win? All potential winning cards would still be out on the table, and each person would have at least one number in front of them.
Click to expand...
The way I'm understanding what you said every time somebody scratches they lose one of their cards. If they scratch enough times they won't have any cards and if the winning horse happens to be the the cards that everybody lost scratching then nobody wins. I don't understand what you're saying everybody will have a number in front of them. The cards you have determine whether you get paid a share or not when you find out which horse wins.
 
Sparkynutz said:
The way you said it every time somebody scratches they lose one of their cards. If they scratch enough times they won't have any cards and if the winning horse happens to be the the cards that everybody lost scratching then nobody wins. I don't understand what you're saying everybody will have a number in front of them. The cards you have determine whether you get paid a share or not when you find out which horse wins.
Click to expand...

He said if a roll would eliminate a player’s last card, then it would be rerolled:
jkoclanis67 said:
if you roll a number that would eliminate someone's last card(s), you would have a re-roll?
Click to expand...
So all players would have at least a chance at a piece of the race.
 
So if the scratch Matched the last card dealt to you then you can re-roll?
Who's gonna keep track of what each person's last card was?
If there's more then 4 players then what?
Only the first 4 players matter to cancel a scratch?
I typically have dealer roll the scratches.
Of course someone is gonna have cards that match the scratch.
Then may as well not scratch any at all.
 
Sparkynutz said:
So if the scratch Matched the last card dealt to you then you can re-roll?
Who's gonna keep track of what each person's last card was?
If there's more then 4 players then what?
Only the first 4 players matter to cancel a scratch?
I typically have dealer roll the scratches.
Of course someone is gonna have cards that match the scratch.
Then may as well not scratch any at all.
Click to expand...
I'm not referring to the last card dealt, I'm referring to when a person only has a single number in front of them, whether it's on one card or more than one card.
Example:
I'm dealt Q,Q,7,3,3
First scratch roll is a 12, so I lose my Q's.
Second scratch roll is a 7, so I lose my 7.
Now I only have 3's in front of me. If someone were to roll a 3 for either of the next two scratch rolls, we would allow a re-roll so I don't lose all my cards. Obvioulsy this gives an advantage to anyone else who has a 3, but I'll take that over having someone play a whole round without any cards.

In all honesty, I was looking through this whole post again and saw someone suggest doing the scratch rolls prior to dealing. Then pull those cards out of the deck and deal the cards. This way everyone has roughly the same amount of cards. I kind of like this idea even better.

I'm anticipating my games to be more on the "casual"/"family" level, so I'm trying to find ways to keep people from getting too burned but still have a chance to win/lose some money.
 
Here's the variation I've come up with. It's probably a bit more "family-friendly" than others play since everyone has a relatively equal amount of cards after the scratch round. It should also build a fairly nice Jockey Pot for the person who rolls the winning number.

  • Buy-in: $25
  • Entry Fee per race: .75¢ (put into the Main Pot).
  • Jockey Fee per race: .25¢ (put into a side Jockey Pot).
  • Deal a single card to each player. The high card receives a “First Player” token.
  • This player rolls a D12 to determine the first scratched horse.
  • Pass D12 to the left and keep rolling/passing until four scratched horses are chosen.
  • If a “1” is ever rolled, pay .25¢ to the Jockey Pot and pass the D12
  • If an already scratched horse number is rolled, pay the Main Pot and pass the D12.
  • Scratched horses are .25¢/.50¢/.75¢/$1.00
  • Remove the corresponding card numbers for scratched horses from the deck.
  • Deal the remaining cards to all players, starting with the “First Player”.
  • Begin play with the next person after the one who rolled the final scratched horse.
  • During play, any rolled doubles pay .25¢ to the Jockey Pot.
  • End of the race, split the Main Pot four ways, and put any extra in the Jockey Pot.
  • The person who rolls the winning number wins the Jockey Pot.
  • Move the “First Player” token clockwise and play again.

My Fineni Cherry Wood board will be delivered tomorrow, so hopefully I will get to try this out next weekend.
 
iballman said:
We created a way to run it more like an actual race track where people can bet on individual horses with different amounts. It's a little more work and requires a spreadsheet, but it gives that element of decision making. The numbers not in the grid change based on the winning horse. The "added to progressive" is for when the rounding doesn't work evenly.
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could you elaborate on how this works?
 
CincinattiKiddo said:
could you elaborate on how this works?
Click to expand...
Sure. We go around the room and people place as much as they want on whichever horses they want. That builds the pot of all money collected. When a horse wins, and someone (or many people) have money bet on that winning horse, they spilt the total money collected proporationaly to how much they bet on that horse.

Ex: People randomly bet and there is $10.00 total on all horses for that race. Horse 5 has the bets of $0.25, $1.00, and $0.75 and wins. The $0.25 bet is 1/8 (12.5%) of the total on that horse, so that person wins $1.25; Player 2 bet $1.00 which is 50% of the total wagers on that horse, they get 50% of the total collected (50% of $10.00) which is $5.00. The other players gets 37.5% which is $3.75. Here everything worked out even, so no extra money is carried over. PM me if you want the excel sheet I built.
 
Last edited:
iballman said:
Sure. We go around the room and people place as much as they want on whichever horses they want. That builds the pot of all money collected. When a horse wins, and someone (or many people) have money bet on that winning horse, they spilt the total money collected proporationaly to how much they bet on that horse.

Ex: People randomly bet and there is $10.00 total on all horses for that race. Horse 5 has the bets of $0.25, $1.00, and $0.75 and wins. The $0.25 bet is 1/8 (12.5%) of the total on that horse, so that person wins $1.25; Player 2 bet $1.00 which is 50% of the total wagers on that horse, they get 50% of the total collected (50% of $10.00) which is $5.00. The other players gets 37.5% which is $3.75. Here everything worked out even, so no extra money is carried over. PM me if you want the excel sheet I built.
Click to expand...
Do you do this in addition to the traditional way of playing the game (with scratched horses and cards), or is this the only way to win money in your version?
 

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