Horse Racing / Frog Racing
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Horse Racing
Usually played on the flight deck during garden parties or banyans. This game resembles the Board Game Totopoly, but was in use before that was invented.

Equipment
The course is an oval, divided into squares, with as many tracks as there are horses. Each track has the same amount of squares to travel.

The Horses are freestanding, i.e a outline painted on plywood set into a piece of four by two as a base.

There are often fences drawn in in the course, which occupy one square but a take off square is also marked immediately before and a ditch can be marked after. Landing in the take-off, on the fence or in the ditch will require a six or double to be thrown to get over.- You then move to the first clear square afterwards, ready to resume the race.  However if you clear the fence cleanly, then it will prove no obstruction to you.

Two large dice are thrown by the owner or manager to move each horse. The dice are usually thrown from a dhoby bucket.

The horse is moved the requisite number of squares.

Special Rules - Can be exercised and thse vary from ship to ship or between fleets
(please tell us of any you know.?)

Certain special rules are used for a 'handicap' race - Doubles thrown from the dice count as zero, except when a horse is blocked by a fence, when it is used to release him to the first clear square after the fence..
So long as the owners horse is not blocked by a fence, an owner can can elect to use his turn to send the lead horse, either back to the start or behind the fence immediately behind that horse of that dice player. (which ever is the closest.) This move is usually worthwhile on the final straight when the next throw is likely to put your opponent over the finish line.

Fun Elementbr> As detailed for frog racing below.

 

Frog Racing
Equipment
Two or more frogs are cut out from plywood 6-8 inch's tall and painted, usually on both sides. Each frog in silhouette has a leg each side of the base and is exactly the same shape. A hole is drilled two thirds up the vertical center line and a piece of string or twine threaded through. One end of the string is fastened to the bulkhead or upright, some four inches above the deck, the other end of the string is then drawn taught drawn taught to the other side of the compartment.

Rules of Play/font>.
DDeck is marked with start and finish and the winner is the first person to get the frog across the finish line.
To move the frog, the player, applies tension to the string and wriggles the taught string to get the frog to walk along the deck. Lots of skill needed.

Fun Element
This game like Tombola is usually played in the messdeck, and requires gambling. Therefore special permission is required. The tote is always run by the mess or ships welfare officer.
Before each race. Each frog/horse is auctioned, and sold to the highest bidding owner or syndicate. Where a manager will be appointed - only the manager and ride can be present on the course.

Betting takes place
At five minutes to racetime, the rider will join with the manager in the 'parade ring'.

 A percentage of the sale price goes to the mess welfare the remainder is divided into prize money. usually divided half or two thirds to the winner, and the balance to the second place LESS the house percentage or cut.
Individuals are then invited to bet on the outcome of the race, the committee taking a cut of the tote and dividing the rest into odds to pay out per ticket. (For example if £11 is bet in total and the house takes £1 then the other £10 is put into the prize money pot. If tickets are 50p each and 10 people have bet on the winner each bet will receive their original  stake of 50p and one tenth of the pot. Thus they each receive £1.
In dividing winners into the pot. The money is rounded down to the nearest whole sum and the pennies or fractions left over passed over into the next race pot. Sometimes ten percent plus the pennies are taken out to be added or distributed to the pot for the last race of the night.

Strategy
There are no rules on who the owner can nominate as jockey, sometimes you will have in the mess a jockey who has 'sussed' the exact need of string tension. angle and shake required to move the frog, deception then is the order of the day. Only the winning owner is declared in the preliminary purchase and unless he himself elects to manage or ride he will not be able to go on the race course. Sometimes if an owner is himself a skillful and a frequent winning jockey he might buy one frog, betting on it himself. To encourage, others to bet on him but which will lower the winning odds, Yet he will then subsequently detail somebody else to race his beast, perhaps given the manager instructions to crucially impede his progress. Whilst he himself rides for the frog with the highest odds. Hopefully winning greater amounts of money which the wining owner shares with him.