Image credit: Em Stonham for Kyusai
Being a gaming journalist is a weird and wonderful career. If you’d have told me a few months ago that I’d end up competing against other journalists in a hobby horse racing circuit to celebrate the console launch of Rival Stars: Horse Racing, I’m not quite sure what I would’ve said.
That’s exactly what happened this April, though – and it was a delightful, whimsical event where we got to learn more about the upcoming console launch, along with the sport of hobby horsing itself, courtesy of the lovely folks from the UK Hobby Horse Association.
Hobby horsing around
To celebrate the upcoming console launch for PikPok’s Rival Stars: Horse Racing, I was invited to a uniquely charming event focusing on hobby horsing.
It’s a sport I’ve not seen in action before, so it was brilliant to learn more about how it worked from the UK Hobby Horse Association representatives.
Before this, I’d assumed that hobby horsing would just be a few hurdles with extra steps, but it turned out to be a lot more intricate and demanding than I’d expected. Not only is there a show-jumping element to it, but there’s also a dressage element, requiring good timing and finesse.
After a demonstration on how to complete the hobby horse circuit, they let the journalists and creators in attendance loose on the track, tasking us with tackling a show-jumping circuit before trying out high-jumping.
I am violently unsporty and, for some reason, decided to attend an admittedly athletic event in velvet flares, so I’ll leave it up to you to picture how I performed. Safe to say, I did not secure Kyusai a place on the podium – there’ll be video evidence on our TikTok soon enough.
After more horsey shenanigans, we hoofed it out of the stable and got the chance to check out Rival Stars: Horse Racing for ourselves.
The game’s been out on PC since June 24, 2020, with a VR edition following on April 17, 2025. It’s due to come out on console on April 28, 2026, meaning equestrian gamers have a big release to look forward to this month.
Intricate yet approachable gameplay
The version of Rival Stars: Horse Racing we got to check out was the PC build, not the console build, but it still served as a great indicator of what to expect from this upcoming release.
As you might expect from the game title, Rival Stars: Horse Racing features in-depth racing gameplay, where players compete on the track against other riders. Succeeding in a race requires good positioning and timing, with a limited amount of sprint available to help you get ahead of the pack.
It’s not just racing on offer in the game, though. You can breed horses – and give them silly names, which I particularly enjoyed – and test out your skills with other mechanics, too, like show-jumping.
Fellow character customization geeks will be pleased to know that there are plenty of customization options in the game, too; less so for the human rider, and more so for the horse itself.
A small feature that I particularly enjoyed was the photo mode. There’s a detailed photo mode in Rival Stars: Horse Racing, allowing you to set up cute photo ops with your favorite horses.
While horse racing isn’t something I’m particularly fascinated by in my day-to-day life, I did enjoy my time with Rival Stars: Horse Racing, as there were plenty of different gameplay elements to get stuck into. The racing was intuitive but challenging in the later stages, and the customization options were a lot of fun.
I’ll be intrigued to see how the game looks on console as a PlayStation 5 fan. It looked solid on PC, with a generally smooth performance throughout the preview, and had a charming, stylized aesthetic.
Fans of horse racing simulators and even racing games as a whole should keep an eye out for the console launch of Rival Stars: Horse Racing on April 28, 2026. It’s looking like it’ll be a lot of fun for fans of the sport, but based on my time with the game so far, I think it’ll be a hit for fans of simulator games in general.
FAQs
Rival Stars: Horse Racing was developed and published by PikPok.
Yes, there’s a VR version of Rival Stars: Horse Racing, available on Steam. It came out on April 17, 2025.
The console launch of Rival Stars: Horse Racing is scheduled for April 28, 2026.
While it’s not a cozy game in the same way that a game like Pokopia or Animal Crossing: New Horizons is, I would say Rival Stars: Horse Racing will be cozy for horse riding fans, due to its soft yet vibrant aesthetic.
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