Take a sip of a mint julep and be prepared for a trip down retro-APBA lane.
How many of you watched the Kentucky Derby this past weekend? I admit I watched it while visiting my family this past weekend. It’s amazing how much hoopla the sports media can whip up over an event that takes just a few minutes. Such is the inspiration for this week’s Terrible Card. It’s Slick, a 2 year old bay colt from APBA’s Saddle Racing Game. Slick’s APBA card came with the game itself and was copyrighted in 1989.
Lone Star Stables’ Slick was sired by Alydar, one of the biggest racing stars of my childhood so I’m sure he had potential. Alas, he wasn’t so ‘slick’ as he is rated as one of worst racehorses in the set with a 10 rating. His rating goes down to a measly 7 on turf.
To give some comparison, look at the APBA card belonging to Alysheba, also sired by Alydar. He is rated a quite fancy 23.
With three 1s and only nine in double digits, his numbers look quite better.
Now, I’m not a horse racing fan and haven’t played APBA Saddle Racing for quite a while. I do remember it being kind of fun, though. I looked forward to those races with sloppy tracks. Looking through my box, I saw that I kept track of results by the jockeys. Not surprisingly, Pat Day and Angel Cordero were among the big winners.
The APBA Saddle Racing Game is no longer being sold by the Company though I’m sure it can be found on Ebay and other outlets at a price. Do any of you still get out to play?
I used to be a big horse racing fan and enjoyed the game but it just didn’t have the feel of a horse race because it didn’t account horses having different paces. Some start fast, some like to come from off the pace and close, etc.
You know, Slick’s card *could* be a Tuesday winner if you shift the context. He’d make a helluva DH!!!
D’oh! Make that a Monday winner.
I play apba baseball most of the time, solo mostly but occasionally with grandkids, nieces, and nephews. I bought the saddle racing game on sale at an apba convention in the 90s and play it when I tire of baseball. It’s fun. As far as absolute accuracy I can’t truthfully comment, because I know virtually nothing about horse racing, other than watching the occasional report on sportscasts. I keep reading these nay-saying comments about the game’s fallacies in that “Potgut is likely to beat Citation regularly.” Frankly I have not found this to be true. The best horses will win most of the time. It’s like saying the ’62 Mets
have a 50-50 chance of beating the ’62 Giants. Well, in all likelihood if you played, say, 20 games between the teams, the Mets would win a few. Mathematically, they could win a majority, but it’s highly unlikely. My guess is these people who make the negative comments simply haven’t played it very much and focus on anomalies.