Horse Game History

The History of Horse Games began early with board games. Mechanical games arise in early 1900s, followed by video games in 1960s. They are mainly serparated in horse racing and horse non-racing video games. A boom of horse games comes in 2000s.



Early Board Games
The earliest forms of Chess and its predecessors had horses as pieces in pre-Islamic Arabia (before about 630 CE), and in India as a game called Chaturanga even earlier than that. These games had several kinds of pieces on a board of squares. The pieces representing horses had a set of valid moves that distinguished them from other pieces on the board.

There have been many variations of horse racing games. A Navajo game referred to as Stick-Dice includes pieces that progress in a circle around a center stone, using "dice" to control the progression of the pieces. The game is sometimes called "Stick-Dice and Horses", with the horses represented by the pieces which travel around the circle. The game involved betting on a winner of the game. Similar racing games have been documented for other Native American tribes, as well as for other countries. The Korean game Yut (윷), likely played prior to 668 CE, features horses moving around a circular track, with the winner being the first player to return all their horses to the finish line.

Horse racing games continued to be produced as board games through modern times. One example from around 1845 involved players on a colored track, with a spinner to select which horse will advance. The first player around the circle wins the race. The French game Jeu des Petits Chevaux (Game of Small Horses), published in 1936, is a derivative of the Pachisi and is similar to the Yut but with a different track. The player wins the race is one of its (one to four) horses-pawns reach the board center. The moves only depend on dice score. Beyond dice and spinners, horse racing board games were published with a wide variety of mechanisms for randomizing the outcome of the race. The board game information site boardgamegeek.com lists over 300 board games categorized as "Sports: Horse Racing."

The Rise of Non-Racing Games
Many horse-related board games up through the 20th century were based on horse racing. However, games began to include other aspects of horse activities, such as show jumping, rodeo, and trivia. In the 1950s and 1960s, horse-related board games began to move away from horse-race subjects.



The end of WWII brought with it a reduction of the use of horses in military capacity, and the landscape also began to change for the inclusion of people in recreational events. In 1952, the Summer Olympics permitted non-military men to compete in equestrian events, and permitted women to compete in dressage for the first time. Queen Elizabeth II famously was fond of horses, and also in 1952, inherited her father's stock of racing and breeding horses. By 1964, women were also permitted to participate in eventing and jumping at the Olympics. In the U.S., the Southwestern Colored Cowboys Association, one of the first minority rodeo organizations, was established in the late 1940s, leading to the creation of clubs like the Circle L Five Riding Club, which became the first all-Black riding club in Fort Worth, Texas.

By the 1960s, several equestrian show jumping board games had been published. These games featured the players' horses  navigating a horse and jumping obstacles. At least one of them was supported by the British Show Jumping Association.

One source of other horse-themed board games came from products in popular culture like 1991 German children's radio show Bibi & Tina, which transitioned to an animated series in 2004. There were several Bibi branded boardgames starting around the time of the beginning of the radio play series in 1991, including Bibi Blocksberg auf dem Martinshof. My Little Pony was another animated series for children which generated fantasy pony board games branded My Little Pony in the 1980s and later. In the early 2000s, companies like Breyer, a manufacturer of horse model toys, began to produce board games involving horses that did not center around horse racing: "The Breyer Game of Horse Sense" (2001) and "Hold Your Horses" (2002). By 2007, the classic board game Monopoly released a horse-themed "Horse Lover's Edition.

Mechanical Games
Particularly in the early 1900s, there were many variations of mechanical horse racing games produced. "Trade Stimulators" were mechanical devices used in shops to promote certain products, or to get customers' attention with the goal of stimulating the purchase of products sold in the shop. A trade stimulator by the name of Steeplechase included colored balls that rolled down a randomizing path, so that the resulting order was random.

Jeu de Course de Chevaux was a French device that had several horses which spun in a circle. A similar game, Jeu des Petits Chevaux, was also a French mechanical game and also a gambling game that occured in casino since 1876; the game was progressively replaced by a ball system, becoming La Boule game, where a ball rolls around the track and falls into target area, selecting the winner horse  (Jeu de Course de Chevaux is probably the familial version of Jeu des Petits Chevaux ). Pace's Races was one of several games produced by Pace's Manufacturing Co. in the early 1930s. The horses moved down the track blown by a bellows, with a perforated paper tape adding the randomization to the race.

With the increased popularity of arcades, many pinball machines were created with horse racing and rodeo themes. One of the earliest, Classic from 1932, featured a "race horse design on a flat track." In 1956, Derby Day allowed the player to advance a specific horse around a circular track by hitting targets with their ball. The 1967 version of Derby Day featured horses moving across the backglass of the machine. Winner from 1971 allowed multiple players on the same game, with horses racing up the center of the machine.

Horse Racing Simulators
Many of the earliest horse-related video games (and some of the earliest video games overall) were horse racing simulations. Horse racing was included in video game designs as early as 1967. The Digital Equipment Computer Users Society was a collection of early computer users. One of the user submissions for software was a game called HORSERACE in 1970. The results of the race were printed out on tape for the user to read as the race progressed.

Early home computers also had versions of horse racing games. Horserace! was a Commodore program from 1979 that depicted several blocky horses racing across a monochrome screen. Horse racing games were common in PCs and console gaming over time, with long running series of horse racing games like Derby Stallion (1991), Winning Post (1993), Derby Owners Club (first console version in 2000), and Starters Orders (2006).

Horse racing was also available in arcades. Atari's Steeplechase (also called "AstroTurf") was a horse racing simulator from 1975 where players gathered around the arcade cabinet and hit a button to jump over obstacles. Though the screen was monochrome, the game presented horses in different colors by including colored filters over sections of the screen.

Horse racing arcade games continued to advance. In 1999, Derby Owners Club was created. With this game, players would sit around a large screen and use buttons to speed up or hold back their horse. At the end of the game, they were given a card to keep their horse to use later at another arcade game in another location, allowing the player to continue developing their horse game after game.

Horses as Mounts
Horses in early video games were often used as mounts, with little if any affect on the gameplay itself. In Atari's 1981 Stampede for the Atari 2600, the player rode on horseback to lasso runaway cattle. In the 1991 PC side-scroller Wrath of the Demon, the player rode on horseback to battle enemy fantasy creatures. The 1993 SNES side-scroller Sunset Riders featured players on horseback in an "Old West" themed game.

A 1985 Commodore 64 game Harvey Smith Showjumper had more of a focus on the horses. This game allowed players to commpete against each other in show jumping around a course. The game also let the user remodel the course, though the user-created levels could not be saved for future use. This particular game was possibly a video game adaptation of the 1974 board game Harvey Smith's Show Jumping.

Horse-Centered Online Gaming
Horse enthusiasts gathered in the early days of the internet on message boards. Users would play text-based role playing on Prodigy bulletin board systems. The users formed clubs with names like WLH for "We Love Horses," and DHC for "Dream Horse Club."

Kristine "Kris" Carroll's Horse Country Games contained several web-based horse games where users could manage a stable, starting around 1994. The site also had trivia and information for users who enjoyed horses and horse riding in real life. The site also coordinated with artist Claudia Coleman to provide a horse-themed art camp and Jr. Riders Art Discussion in 1996. Horse Country added several different games between 1995 and 1997, HOCK, TACK, REIN, and MANE, referred to on the site as "cyberbarn" games.

The Horseland website also began in 1994. The site had a horse-themed chat room for users, as well as book reviews and horse trivia. In 1998, the site added "Cyberstables", a place on the site for users to manage their own simulated horses. The site continued to grow, and even spun off an animated cartoon series in 2006.

Horse-Centered Series Games
Leading into 2000, there were several PC and console games that published series of horse-themed games which were not centered around betting on horse races. In some cases, the same games were republished with a new name and sometimes even under a new franchise, which complicates identifying specific games. Some of these series games and franchises include Let's Ride!, Riding Star, Alexandra Ledermann, Pippa Funnell, and Barbie Riding Club/Barbie Horse Adventures.

Starshine Legacy, the precursor to Star Stable Online, included several single-player games. Each focused on a particular character in the Star Rider mythos.

Browser Games
After the Horse Country games, there were many spin-off horse stable management and breeding simulations created as websites. Some of these include Horseland (1998), Horse World Online (2004), Howrse (2005), The Oaks (2006), Horse Isle (2007). Some of these games also involved competitions between players, such as showing and jumping events.

Around 2007, a horse-themed Art Role Playing Game (ARPG) named HorseArt-RPG was developed and went live in 2008. Players use the DeviantArt website to share horse-themed art, and to role-play with their drawn creations. Other ARPGs with horse (or horse-like fantasy creature) themes followed, such as Fawnlings in 2012 with a fantasy style, and Cottonwood Valley in 2015 with a western style.

Horses in Modern Games
Many modern games have horses as a significant part of the gameplay. These have sometimes been included in lists of "best horse games" even though they do not have horses as the primary focus of the game. Some of these include The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015), The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017), and Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018), for example.

Horse-focused games continue to be produced for PC, Mac, and gaming consoles. Star Stable Online is arguably the most successful horse game currently in active development, with a player base of more than 500,000 active players.

Mobile Gaming
Nintendo Switch, Android, and IOS devices have countless games themed around horses. Some of the more popular of these titles include Rival Stars Horse Racing and Pocket Stables.

Modding Communities
Many modern games allow user-created content. These modifications, often called "mods," can be shared among users to allow alteration of--or an increased focus on--a particular part of the game. Many mods are available for various games, adding horses or improving horses already in the game. Some examples of games with horse-related mods include Skyrim and Minecraft.

Indie Games
Since 2020, many independent developers attemp to create their own horse games as passion project. The first of them, Equestrian the Game, is released in 2022. Other promising indie games will following such as Astride, Tales of Rein Ravine, Unbridled: That Horse Game or The Ranch of Rivershine.

TMQ article about Indie horse game