To play, you need a pair of dice, a deck of cards, and the Horse Race game board!
From the deck of cards, discard the aces, kings, and jokers, leaving you with 44 cards. Shuffle and then deal the cards. Each player will not necessarily receive the same number of cards.
Place the horses at the starting gate. Four horses must be scratched before the race starts. To do this, the player to the left of the dealer rolls the dice, and the total on the dice is the first horse to be scratched. That horse is moved back to the first line. For example, if a three and a five were thrown with the dice, a total of eight, then horse number eight would be moved back to the first line. All players would then check their cards and pay five cents for each number eight card in their hand. The eights are then discarded.
The next player then rolls the dice for the second scratch. That horse moves back to the second line and costs ten cents for each of those that you have in your hand. Continue with the third and fourth scratch, moving to the fifteen and twenty cent lines, respectively. Paying the designated amounts and discarding the scratched cards accordingly. If you shake the number of a horse that is already scratched, you pay the amount on that horse’s line and pass the dice to the next player.
The horses now remaining at the gate are ready for the race to start. The next person rolls the dice and moves that horse forward one space. However, if the total on the dice is that of a scratched horse, that player must pay the amount which that horse is standing on.
Play continues around the table, until one horse reaches the finish line! If horse number nine should win the race, and you have no nines in your hand, then you’re out of luck. On the other hand, if you were to have two nines in your hand, you would win half the pot! Each card with the winning horse’s number wins 25% of the pot. If you had all four of the one number, and that horse was to win then you would take the entire pot.
After the pot has been divided, the cards are passed to the next player, the horses are all moved to the starting gate, and you’re ready to begin the next race!
Poker chips, peanuts, pretzels, or anything else you could imagine can be substituted for money.