Horse Racing Manager is Out Now in Early Access! Key Giveaway & Developer Q&A
Horse Racing Manager is a 2D Management Game where you run your own racing stables, breed and train horses, and manage staff. Developer Jon Mäkinen of Sheep Meadow Road Games has given The Mane Quest some insight into his plans for the game back in early 2024, find that article here if you missed it!
In the meantime, the project has grown and evolved – adding Harness Racing , Betting, Medical Care for horses and new locations, among other things – and launches into Early Access today! Find the game right here on Steam, where it’s currently 15% off.
Take a look at their latest trailer right here (there’s even real horses in it!)
I can’t say that racing management is the type of subgenre that interests me personally, but I know there’s a market for it, and that loads of people in the horse-loving community are clamoring for more depth and strategy than traditional kid-friendly horse games tend to provide. From keeping an eye on the project over the past two years, I also know that Sheep Meadow Road Games has been proactive about sharing the project in the TMQ Communities and incorporating feedback from horse-loving players, which is always much appreciated.
Developer Q&A
The Mane Quest: There's been a public demo for the game available - what additions can players expect between it and the release version?
Jon Mäkinen: The demo and the full-game is basically two different games, the demo was mainly a short demo where you could breed a horse, race it for ten races and that was it. It was “arcady” and we had to do it this way, since in a management/simulation game you can’t really do a vertical slice if the full game is not feature complete. In the full game you take over a full stable, you don’t only race a single horse.
TMQ: Horse Racing Manager is releasing into Early Access - is there a roadmap for planned changes until full release? What further additions can players expect?
JM: We are releasing into early access, because we really like an iterative developing experience with the fans. Before early access, we have run a public alpha since around spring this year where anyone can join for free, to test and develop with us the main game. During the alpha, we have released over 50 new versions of the game, improving and adding 150+ features, while fixing 300+ bugs. We also do everything in public, and anyone can see our current open bugs and feature requests here.
For early access, we have some frames/big themes we want to do but we are always open to discussion with the fans. We mainly talk in discord and invite anyone to join to chat about the game, we already have over 500 people there!
TMQ: You've made active use of the TMQ Communities to gain visibility for your game - how has the reception been? Have you made any particular changes because of horse-loving players' feedback?
The reception has been excellent, I also think that horse gamers overall are very welcoming and warm compared to other groups. The fans and the community, has really made this into a unforgettable experience. Without those, I would most likely have quit already. We also have a community project ongoing in our Discord where we are gathering real life races and race tracks, so that the fans can import these into the game. As usual, this started small, but soon turned crazy. We soon modeled the entire world and I think have one of the most accurate databases of races and racetracks around the world, in the world. This is pretty weird for a game :D So far we have 2500+ races, 300+ racetracks (with 500 separate tracks). Fans will soon be able to import these into the game easily.
TMQ: Anything else you'd like to share with TMQ readers?
If you have ever wanted a game between Starters Orders 7 and Rival Stars, with a modern UI, try us! We want to make the most realistic horse racing simulator in the world.
Key Giveaway
To participate in a raffle for three free Steam keys provided by Sheep Meadow Road Games, simply leave a comment on this article. Make sure to provide your email when commenting so I’ll have a way of contacting you. The email will not be shown publicly if you do this right - Don’t put it into the body of the comment, just in the email field. Three winners will be chosen at random among all commenters with a valid email.
The giveaway will be open until November 7th 2025.