Qualifying in my First Tournament on Zed Run

As a kid growing up in Central Arkansas, I always enjoyed the opportunity to go watch the horse races at Oaklawn Racetrack in Hot Springs. When I was younger, I enjoyed just getting to see the horses and how fast they could run. As a I grew enjoyed other aspects of the race day experience such as learning to bet on the horses adding another element of excitement to the races. After I moved away, I still enjoyed following horse racing, but I wanted a little more. Then this past June I discovered Zed Run a virtual horse racing game based on the blockchain where racehorses exist as NFTs. After a little bit of research, I decided to get involved and purchased my first horse Sub-Zero.

Now after nine months my stable looks very different I went from having about six horses to only having two. The initial six horses I had were very unpredictable and appeared unreliable in racing. I was and am still very new to this continually changing project. So, I decided to sell all my horses and reinvest in two horses that I could focus on learning their racing habits and create a new strategy around. The first of these two horses is Sea3PO who is a Z18 Exclusive Finney Colt who thrives at short distance sprints. The second is Arkanian Offshoot a Z30 Elite Finney Colt who best performs at mid-stance races particularly the 1800m races. After about a month with these two and the introduction of tournaments to Zed Run and my inability to qualify I though I might sell Arkanian Offshoot to purchase a Finney filly or mare to breed with Sea3Po. However, after two weeks on the market no reasonable offers had come through, so I decided to stick with Arkanian Offshoot a little longer.

Shortly after Zed Run made a change to its tournament structure and introduced daily tournaments. Over the past two weeks or so since this change neither of my horses had qualified for a tournament though Sea3PO had come very close several times particularly in the Pity Cup Tournament which rewards horses for coming in fourth. I was beginning to think about trying to sell Arkanian Offshoot once again, yet I decided to hold off while I work on streaming my races over YouTube and Twitch. Then last Friday Night/Saturday Morning during the qualifying for Saturday’s Keep on Winning Tournament Arkanian Offshoot pulled a string of impressive races together.

Starting the qualifying period off with a second-place finish in a 2000m NASCAR Stakes at Class V. Then came The San Jose Mile where Arkanian Offshoot pulled off an impressive first place finish which moved Arkanian Offshoot into Class IV which had me thinking he was done as in the past he has not faired well in Class IV and I was hoping he would stay in Class V a bit longer. Arkanian Offshoot’s first two races at Class IV resulted in an eleventh and fourth place finishes neither of which helped improve his standings. Hoping that one last top three finish would be enough to set him up for the consolation bracket or Tournament B as it’s called on Zed Run, he came in a disappointing tenth place for his fifth race the minimum number of races needed to qualify. I thought was it and was prepared to rest both horses for the next tournament's qualifying period. Then I checked the standing out of curiosity. Arkanian was ranked number 162 with just under twelve hours of qualifying remaining.

I watched the leaderboards closely the rest of the morning. Waiting to see if I needed to run another race to try and keep him within the top 382 to make the cut for Tournament B. As time to qualifying ticked closer to being over it was a slow and steady decline in the rankings as I expected but not rapidly enough for me to want to risk a non-top three finish to race again. As qualifying ended Arkanian Offshoot finished at 360 just making the cut for Tournament B. Then a new kind of excitement had begun as I realized I had just qualified for my first tournament.

The quarter-final races for this tournament were set at 1800m Arkanian Offshoot’s best distance. Being simply excited to even have made the cut this was the most exciting race and most important race so far for my stable. After what appeared to be a strong start in the quarter-final race Arkanian Offshoot began declining mid race falling to the rear of the pack being about 100m behind first place. Thinking this was the end of my first tournament appearance Arkanian Offshoot began picking up his pace with about 250m left in the race and making up lost ground. At first it seemed like his final effort was going to come up short with a fourth-place finish then came the final replay of the finish line crossing. Arkanian Offshoot’s late take off had propelled him into third place by two-thousandths of a second. I jumped out of my chair with excitement as watched realized what had just happened and Arkanian Offshoot moved on to the semi-finals.

The semi-finals were not so kind as Arkanian Offshoot finished sixth place in his heat. That was the end of my first tournament run. Now I am on to running more races in hopes of qualifying for another tournament and continuing to grow my stable and enjoy Zed Run as much as possible.