GR Simsters Equinics Diary<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Given<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People always say that you don\u2019t necessarily feel yourself\ngetting older. Instead, you just look back one day and say, \u201cWhere the hell did\nall the time go?\u201d and \u201cHow did I get so old?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I turned 40 this past year, and I find myself having those\ntypes of thoughts more and more often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reality is that the Sim has now been a huge part of my\nlife for 17 years, inching closing to being a presence for half of my\nexistence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it\u2019s given me a great deal \u2013 a real sense of personal\nsatisfaction and accomplishment, a way to pass some of the quiet and lonely\nhours, a source of frustration, and most importantly, it\u2019s given me many of my\nbest friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 \u201cHorse-Lympics,\u201d as my official life partner has taken to calling them. So let\u2019s go back to the very first Horse-Lympics that I took part in\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2004 \u2013 I\u2019d 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 \u2013 the combination of real pedigrees, real racing schedule, and competitive environment was phenomenal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we started learning everything we could about the game,\nand soon realized we needed to start our own residency to take part in the Equinics\nand have our own private forums. Thus the GR Simsters were born, with the GR\nstanding for Gallop Racer. In our early days, we really didn\u2019t have much in the\nway of horsepower, and if I recall correctly, our only placing in the Equinics\nwas from Ziklag, campaigned by RVD. It was a great experience, and we promised\neach other that we\u2019d do much better the next time around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2006 \u2013 This time around, we had a ton of horses that looked\nlike they could be competitive, and the most difficult task was making the selections.\nWe had a lot of strong-willed and stubborn members in the residency, most\nnotably our President, Galileo aka Geoff, our Vice President (me), Lenny aka\nRyan, and War Emblem aka Todd. Honestly we were all pretty stubborn, except\nmaybe PadreBri aka Brian who has that relaxed California mentality. So the\nselection was a real bear, but we got through it, and we shocked the Sim world\nby coming away with the Gold Medal!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our individual horse winners that year were Squirrel aka Tracy\u2019s\nincomparable Solar Song, our residency horse, Xtremely Gold (Geoff did a great\njob campaigning her), Lenny\u2019s Ganglord, Lenny\u2019s Creepshow, Lenny\u2019s Compensation,\nand Zewango\u2019s Tequila Shooter and Digging the Grave! At least I think all those\nhorses were in our residency, with people switching back and forth residencies,\nsometimes it gets hard to keep everything straight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Winning the Equinics that year was one of the biggest thrills\nin my Sim career, although from a personal perspective I was certainly hoping\nthat my horses would perform a bit better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2008, we had a subpar showing finishing 5th<\/sup>\n(Blazing Saddles won), and at the same time there was a ton of controversy\ngoing on internally with the GR Simsters, some of it centering around the\nselections for the Equinics. I regret a lot of what happened back then. There\nwere a lot of strong personalities, some bad situations, and the result was a\nshake-up that resulted in me taking over as President of the GR Simsters and\nLenny taking over as Vice President. Another result was that I lost someone as\na friend who had been a really constant presence in my life, and who was the\nmain factor in introducing me to the Sim and to pedigrees. It\u2019s sad thinking\nback on it, but I suppose sometimes in life these things happen. But again,\ncertainly some regrets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With that in mind, 2010 was for me, personally, far and away\nthe most important Equinics. It was my first as President of the residency, and\nwe were coming off a disappointing 5th<\/sup>-place finish in 2008.\nFurthermore, I had not won an Equinics race to that point, so there was a lot of\npressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I needed my horses to come up huge, and come up huge they\ndid! I won three Equinics races \u2013 Dead Zone, Tatsu, and The Beggar King, and\nthe GR Simsters reclaimed the Gold Medal. Up to that point, it was far and away\nthe most satisfying moment for me in this great game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We had a good showing in 2012, but finished 2nd<\/sup>\nwith 35 points, right behind DelPenn, our fierce rivals at the time, who\nfinished with 37 points. That was a great rivalry, and one that also produced\nsome really good Sim friends, including AFC aka Tony. Our relationship started\nwith him comparing me to Osama bin Laden for \u201cstealing\u201d one of his mares, and\nit\u2019s turned into a wonderful friendship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since 2012, the GR Simsters have not lost the Equinics. We\nearned the Gold Medal in 2014, 2016 (our first Summer Gold), and 2018. It\u2019s actually\nquite amazing considering the fact that our interest as a group has really ebbed\nand flowed over the last five years or so. 2017 and 2018 were probably my\nbiggest down years in the Sim, with a lot going on in my personal life, but we\nstill managed to squeak out a win in 2018. That being said, the past few years\nhave really seen my interest in this incredible game pick up, and I know the\nsame can be said for Lenny. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And of course Padre and Willyam as lifelong members of the\nGR Simsters, and two of the nicest people you will ever meet. All of our\nwebsites have been created and maintained by Padre, who is a web master genius\nof the highest degree!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our 2020 Equinics team has horses from the following members\nof the GR Simsters:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lenny \u2013 12<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given \u2013 9<\/p>\n\n\n\n Liam – 4<\/p>\n\n\n\n Epic \u2013 3<\/p>\n\n\n\n PadreBri \u2013 2<\/p>\n\n\n\n Willyam \u2013 1<\/p>\n\n\n\n MasterM \u2013 1<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that\u2019s it! We really don\u2019t have a ton of active members any\nlonger, but we still feel very confident that we can compete for our 4th<\/sup>\nstraight Equinics title. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It should be a fantastic competition either way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks to everyone who makes this event and this game so\nspecial, and here\u2019s to a fantastic 2020 Horse-Lympics!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" GR Simsters Equinics Diary By Given People always say that you don\u2019t necessarily feel yourself getting older. Instead, you just<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52699"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52703,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52699\/revisions\/52703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}