Cassell's Book of In-door Amusements, Card Games, and Fireside Fun

by Various

RACE GAME.

The Race Game is an interesting round parlour game, which may be indulged in by any number of players up to twelve. It has seen many imitations and modifications of it brought into use, and the games of the University Boat Race and the National Volunteers may be instanced as two specimens of more than ordinary interest; the first of these, however, can only be played by two persons at a time.

The Race Game proper is played on a board, and is subject to rules supplied with the board and the other materials for the game. The board is marked into divisions, and at certain distances obstacles, such as fences, hurdles, and ditches are placed, for the horses participating in the race to clear. The players having determined the order of playing, each one selects his horse, and places it at the starting-point. Dice and dice-box, or a numbered teetotum, are used, to denote the number of divisions the player's horse is entitled to pass over, but should that number land the horse in any one of the brooks or ditches, or upon the fences or hurdles, the throw of the dice, or, as the case may be, the spin of the teetotum, does not count, and the horse waits for another chance of a move when his player's turn next comes round. Each player alternately takes his chance of moving. The rules by which the game is governed vary considerably, and may be modified in any way agreeable to all the players. The following are given merely as specimen rules, as they are the substance of those most frequently supplied with the game:—

Race Game.

1.—When the stakes are agreed upon and the pool made, each member must select his horse, and then enter him at the starting-point.

2.—Each member throws, or spins, for choice of move; the highest number claims the first move, and the others according to the number thrown.

3.—The horse that reaches the winning-post first gains the pool, the second horse saving his stakes.

4.—Steeple or hurdle races can be played by placing fences and hurdles along the course, and any player throwing a number that would place his horse so that he does not clear the fence forfeits his throw, and waits his next turn.

Although the game is made more interesting when played with the materials supplied at the toy-shops, these are by no means indispensable. Any ordinary board, or school slate, may be marked into the necessary course and divisions over which the horses are to travel; a few horses may be readily cut out of some stiff cardboard, and a common teetotum will furnish all the materials absolutely needed for the game. It will be found that the game, so arranged for, will well repay any little trouble taken in manufacturing and obtaining the necessary horses and race-course.