GR Simsters Equinics Diary

GR Simsters Equinics Diary

By Given

People always say that you don’t necessarily feel yourself getting older. Instead, you just look back one day and say, “Where the hell did all the time go?” and “How did I get so old?”

I turned 40 this past year, and I find myself having those types of thoughts more and more often.

The reality is that the Sim has now been a huge part of my life for 17 years, inching closing to being a presence for half of my existence.

And it’s given me a great deal – a real sense of personal satisfaction and accomplishment, a way to pass some of the quiet and lonely hours, a source of frustration, and most importantly, it’s given me many of my best friends.

Residencies provide a natural outlet for groups of Sim friends to gather and converse, and of course to take part in the Equinics, or the “Horse-Lympics,” as my official life partner has taken to calling them. So let’s go back to the very first Horse-Lympics that I took part in…

2004 – I’d been introduced to the Sim by some of my friends who were fanatics in the ORL Racing World, a Gallop Racer focused league organized by Jim Cougar. Some of those players included Silver Charm aka Galileo aka Geoff, Lenny271 aka Ryan, PadreBri aka Brian, WarEmblem aka Todd, Willyam aka William, Tremendous Machine aka RVD aka Phil, Zewango aka SDMF, and Lopo87 aka Lopo. All of us were racing fanatics, and were immediately enthralled with the Sim – the combination of real pedigrees, real racing schedule, and competitive environment was phenomenal.

So we started learning everything we could about the game, and soon realized we needed to start our own residency to take part in the Equinics and have our own private forums. Thus the GR Simsters were born, with the GR standing for Gallop Racer. In our early days, we really didn’t have much in the way of horsepower, and if I recall correctly, our only placing in the Equinics was from Ziklag, campaigned by RVD. It was a great experience, and we promised each other that we’d do much better the next time around.

2006 – This time around, we had a ton of horses that looked like they could be competitive, and the most difficult task was making the selections. We had a lot of strong-willed and stubborn members in the residency, most notably our President, Galileo aka Geoff, our Vice President (me), Lenny aka Ryan, and War Emblem aka Todd. Honestly we were all pretty stubborn, except maybe PadreBri aka Brian who has that relaxed California mentality. So the selection was a real bear, but we got through it, and we shocked the Sim world by coming away with the Gold Medal!

Our individual horse winners that year were Squirrel aka Tracy’s incomparable Solar Song, our residency horse, Xtremely Gold (Geoff did a great job campaigning her), Lenny’s Ganglord, Lenny’s Creepshow, Lenny’s Compensation, and Zewango’s Tequila Shooter and Digging the Grave! At least I think all those horses were in our residency, with people switching back and forth residencies, sometimes it gets hard to keep everything straight.

Winning the Equinics that year was one of the biggest thrills in my Sim career, although from a personal perspective I was certainly hoping that my horses would perform a bit better.

In 2008, we had a subpar showing finishing 5^th (Blazing Saddles won), and at the same time there was a ton of controversy going on internally with the GR Simsters, some of it centering around the selections for the Equinics. I regret a lot of what happened back then. There were a lot of strong personalities, some bad situations, and the result was a shake-up that resulted in me taking over as President of the GR Simsters and Lenny taking over as Vice President. Another result was that I lost someone as a friend who had been a really constant presence in my life, and who was the main factor in introducing me to the Sim and to pedigrees. It’s sad thinking back on it, but I suppose sometimes in life these things happen. But again, certainly some regrets.

With that in mind, 2010 was for me, personally, far and away the most important Equinics. It was my first as President of the residency, and we were coming off a disappointing 5^th-place finish in 2008. Furthermore, I had not won an Equinics race to that point, so there was a lot of pressure.

I needed my horses to come up huge, and come up huge they did! I won three Equinics races – Dead Zone, Tatsu, and The Beggar King, and the GR Simsters reclaimed the Gold Medal. Up to that point, it was far and away the most satisfying moment for me in this great game.

We had a good showing in 2012, but finished 2^nd with 35 points, right behind DelPenn, our fierce rivals at the time, who finished with 37 points. That was a great rivalry, and one that also produced some really good Sim friends, including AFC aka Tony. Our relationship started with him comparing me to Osama bin Laden for “stealing” one of his mares, and it’s turned into a wonderful friendship.

Since 2012, the GR Simsters have not lost the Equinics. We earned the Gold Medal in 2014, 2016 (our first Summer Gold), and 2018. It’s actually quite amazing considering the fact that our interest as a group has really ebbed and flowed over the last five years or so. 2017 and 2018 were probably my biggest down years in the Sim, with a lot going on in my personal life, but we still managed to squeak out a win in 2018. That being said, the past few years have really seen my interest in this incredible game pick up, and I know the same can be said for Lenny.

The rest of our residency has been buoyed by our Australian friend Liam, who is also running the MasterM stables right now, and Epic aka Dan who is a fantastic guy and has been a real part of the Sim history and lore as well.

And of course Padre and Willyam as lifelong members of the GR Simsters, and two of the nicest people you will ever meet. All of our websites have been created and maintained by Padre, who is a web master genius of the highest degree!

Our 2020 Equinics team has horses from the following members of the GR Simsters:

Lenny – 12

Given – 9

Liam – 4

Epic – 3

PadreBri – 2

Willyam – 1

MasterM – 1

And that’s it! We really don’t have a ton of active members any longer, but we still feel very confident that we can compete for our 4^th straight Equinics title.

It should be a fantastic competition either way.

Thanks to everyone who makes this event and this game so special, and here’s to a fantastic 2020 Horse-Lympics!!