Review of Howrse

First off, Merry X-Mas Eve! Hope that Santa will be good to you come the morning! And be sure to give extra treats to your four legged companions!

Now to business, Howrse is an automated sim horse game that originated as Equideo in France, it has been widely popular as a fun diversion of time online for a little over a year. The creators are going to be unveiling a german language version in the near future. Howrse is a versatile game, it is free to sign up and free to play, however to purchase black market items for your horses it costs passes which you can either get through purchasing them via Paypal, selling horses, purchasing one with your reserved money once per month, and other random events.

Howrse can be played by anyone, it is simple to learn but more challenging to master, for those just interesting in fiddling around it is a great time to be had. For those more interested in challenging themselves there are various riding level exams to be taken which challenge the mind, you can open up your own equestrian center where you can be a boarding barn, raise crops, employ other players, etc. The challenge of becoming the best equestrian center is difficult and takes time and patience, but is rewarding when you see yourself getting better as a player.

On the horse side of Howrse you can simply breed horses to see what you come up with or you can strive to breed the best of the best of your breed of choice. Competition is fierce but players are friendly in this game. Experienced players are more than willing to assist new players. There is a nice variety of breeds available to choose from as well. The popularity of breeds as of this morning is:

	Race	Horses
	Arabian Horse	137062
	Paint Horse	135518
	Thoroughbred	131063
4	Hanoverian	100679
5	Quarter Horse	87103
6	Newfoundland pony	71638
7	Australian Pony	51662
8	Appaloosa	48803
9	Welsh	47397
10	Connemara	38225
11	Standardbred	34165
12	Canadian Horse	30456
13	Purebred Spanish Horse	26672
14	Chincoteague Pony	17296
15	Irish Hunter	1863

There has been three new breeds introduced in the past few months and those were the Purebred Spanish Horse, Chincoteague Pony, and Irish Hunter. There is talk about a new layout revamping for next year with new graphics for the horses. The administration also hosts several contests per calender year to keep things interesting, most notably their membership drive contest that concluded recently. Currently there is a Christmas Tree decorating contest where you find random items to trim a tree with floating around, you click on them to collect them and the more trimmings you collect the more goodies you win. (Mostly black market goodies with the potential for passes).

All in all, I highly recommend this game as a fun way to waste a day playing! :)