<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Equinics has become exhausting. Maybe it always was. The ideal of Equinics was noble, a SIM-wide competition between “Residencies” (guilds, gangs, clans) to vie for…well…fake digital medals, but it did used to carry some trash talk potential when some of us were in our 20s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, decades later, having been on 4 Equinics selection committees and racing 5 Equinics winners, I realize that the event should quietly be retired because it does more harm than good. It always creates animosity within residencies (guilds, gangs, clans) on how horses are selected, which horses are selected, and why those horses are selected. Many years ago now, the SIM lost one of its main revenue-spending players from GR Simsters when he quit the game over a horse selection. Was that petty? I don’t know, maybe yes, maybe no. Does it matter? The results were that the game lost thousands of dollars because of this event, and I eventually lost daily contact with a friend. We still call each other a few times a year, but the fallout between him and the other GR Simster members was never repaired. If an event in a leisure activity can cause that kind of rupture, then it already has major red flags around it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last Equinics cycle, I had to deal with a residency where 1\/3 of the members wanted to boycott the event…over the lack of 2yo races. Petty reason? Maybe, yes. Maybe, no. But again, you can’t fault them for feeling the way they do. It’s not like they developed these feelings out of the blue. Equinics brought it on. When this event was started decades ago, we, as a community and society, were a lot less in tune with inclusion and putting together events that make people feel good. It’s a game; it’s supposed to be enjoyable, but so much about the event is now unenjoyable. It’s divisive, exclusionary, and always generates bad feelings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is not just restricted to the residencies involved. Why should unaligned horses be closed out of the event? That makes no sense. You have to be part of a gang (residency, guild, clan) to race for the digital medals? Further, it blocks up a huge portion of the racing season, locking stables in place and preventing movement. This is unfair to both players in residencies and those who aren’t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Equinics was fading and on its way out, but first URC, then Orphans kept it on life support, though both residencies then made autonomous, not SIM-wide decisions on the event. It’s time to enact the DNR and pull the plug on Equinics. There is no need for the event anymore. Something more positive and inclusive can be put in its place, or not. Maintaining things because that’s the way they have always been leads to atrophy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m much older than the young guy who wanted to take the SIM by storm with a group of friends that met up in Chicago one weekend. I find myself in yet another divisive Equinics selection moment, and I’m asking myself, why? This is all so obtuse and ridiculous. Equinics has turned into the exact opposite of the Olympic ideal, creating nothing but hard feelings within residencies (guilds, gangs, clans). Leadership in the SIM has exacerbated this problem by letting the Residency issue fester for years now. Residency Reform has been promised, and yet every January it goes by, and the same structure is in place where the Residency leaders have near-draconian power over the credits earned by their membership each month. So it hasn’t been as simple as “just form your own residency” for years now because the legacy residencies have benefited from a system that has been largely closed off to anyone even wanting to break up the current guild\/gang\/clan system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Based on the locking of stables within residencies after Equinics, presumably due to the long-awaited residency (guild, gang, clan) revamp, now would be the perfect time to retire this event for the troubling anachronism that it is. The few positives that Equinics used to provide no longer outweigh the negatives. Instead of bringing out the best in people, it brings out the worst. We are now enlightened enough to recognize that. Do we have the courage to let it go? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Equinics has become exhausting. Maybe it always was. The ideal of Equinics was noble, a SIM-wide competition between “Residencies” (guilds,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":459,"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":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-previews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75889","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\/459"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75889"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75890,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75889\/revisions\/75890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}