A simple pen & paper game without abusing horses

Start table

How to use it?
When we start the race, we want to know, which of the horses is the first, that breaks out of the box?! Or in other words, how is the reaction time? This value can change from race to race and actual condition of the horse, so we roll the dices, to set the result, based on this Start table, for each of the horses.

This can be done before the race or combined with the first run field roll - it depends on your personal choice. Sometimes you'll get negative results, this means, that the horse has overslept the start and is a little bit delayed. Sometimes a bad start can change the outcome of the race completely.

Please note, that I also plan to improve this part with personal values for each horse in the future, to adjust or compensate the result - based on the age and experience of the specific horse.

Start stalls vs. Free start​
If you play flat races, then you will use most of the time the start from the stalls (boxes). All horses will start a the same time from the same position, next to each other. In this case, you will just use the Start table.

But if you play tracks with jumps, then you should use free starts (without stalls), because fences eliminate tiny gaps between the start positions enough, to be still fair. The free start table will be used as addition to the Start table.

The values are the same, but will be used together. So you roll the dice for the start (reaction of the horse) and then also for the Free start. Add both values together and subtract them from your first RUN result. Please note, if you get an negative result, you will write it into the B column on the scorecard and subtract the (rest of) negative value from the next RUN move/result. If there is still a negative value, you repeat that for the next RUN value, until the negative result is compensated. In this case, most of the time, the horse is behind the other ones - a bad day!

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Downloads in work (June 2023)