Buy Your Virtual Race Horse

You are now ready to buy your first Raceclubs virtual race horse. Select "Sales Ring" from the "Buy a Horse" option on the left-hand menu. You'll see you can also "Claim" a horse, we'll cover that aspect of virtual horse racing a little later.

Buying a horse in the sales ring costs $15 (£7.65). You can buy more than one horse at a time using the "Bulk Purchase" option, but for your first purchase your best just buying the one.

You can choose the colour, name, sex and age (2yo or 3yo) of your horse. In the virtual horse racing world a season lasts 4 months and every horse will age 1 year at the start of the new season.

You will also need to decide if you wish to "Pay Supplementary Fees", these qualify your horse to run in the championship series of races. It will cost you $5 (£2.55) if you pay it now or $100 (£51) if your horse turns out to be a winner and you wish to enter it in the big stakes races.

Each virtual horse comes with its own unique profile and racing characteristics. There are 100,000 different pedigrees of virtual horses, so you never know just what you'll get. You may get a champion racer at your first attempt.

You have enough free credits remaining to cover the supplementary fee, but you'd probably do better saving them to buy equipment from the tack shop.

The purchase price of your horse includes the first months stable fee. Thereafter the monthly fee ranges from $0.00 to $2.00 (£1.02), depending on how many times the horse is raced.

You will get a discount on the stabling fee of a horse every time you race it. So if you race enough times during the month you wont have to pay future fees.

To ensure you don't forget to renew the stabling fee it's best to check the "Automatic Stabling Fee Deduction" box. You should also check the email reminder box, that way you have chance to deactivate your horse before the fee is due.

Click the "Buy Your Horse" button and assuming the name you have chosen does not already exist, the horse will be added to your shopping basket.

If the name does exist, you'll need to change it and click the button again.

At this point you can proceed to the tack shop to get your horse kitted out with racing shoes (Alumites), blinkers etc. but you'd do better seeing how good your horse is, before you go spending extra money on it. So for now click on the "View Basket" button and proceed to the checkout.

You'll see listed the horse you've just brought, plus the silks you designed earlier. Click on the "Purchase Button" and confirm your purchase.

There is no need to enter any credit card details at this point, as you are using the Free credits given to you by Raceclubs.

Initially your virtual horse will be 50% fit. This is a good thing, as you'll need to train it to full fitness, before you race. In doing so you'll establish how good your horse is and what it's ideal racing conditions are.

This is where the real fun begins, so on you go to

Training Your Virtual Race Horse >>