# The Races

Race your own horse against other souls for a pot of gloo. This is a five horse sprint on a track of its own, and it is a different thing from the [pub racebook](/gluebook/gluniverse-racebook), which bets on the real $GLUE track. Here you are the one running.

## The race board

Racing starts at the **race board**, at the town stables. One soul posts a heat and picks the **entry fee**. Others join. A heat runs with **2 to 5 racers**, and it starts the moment the fifth seat fills, or on the poster's word. Each heat runs on its own private copy of the track, so nobody outside can interfere.

## Four leagues

The fee you pick is the league you race in:

| Entry | League | Ranked |
|---|---|---|
| free | practice | no |
| 1,000 gloo | 1K LEAGUE | yes |
| 10,000 gloo | 10K LEAGUE | yes |
| 1,000,000 gloo | 1M LEAGUE | yes |

A **practice** heat costs nothing and pays nothing. It does not touch your record and never ranks you. The three paid leagues do all three: they pay a pot, they count on your career, and they put you on the [race boards](/gluebook/gluniverse-leaderboards) once you have **5 settled heats** behind you.

## The pot

Every racer's fee goes into one **pot**, and the winner takes it, minus a **5% cut that is burned**. Cancel a heat, or fail to start one, and every fee comes back, exactly once. No fee is ever minted or lost.

The board is patient with the living and strict with the absent. A posted heat waits **15 seconds** for its roster, then runs without the no-shows and refunds them. A heat nobody starts auto-cancels and refunds after **10 minutes**. And once the **first** racer crosses, everyone else has **20 seconds** to place before the heat settles, so one quitter cannot hold four finishers on the line.

## How you win

The track is a long lane, run west to east, and first across the finish wins. There is **no rubber banding** and no luck: the race is decided by how you spend **stamina**.

- **Gallop** to go fast, but galloping drains stamina, and a horse with empty legs is slow.
- **Hurdles** cross the lane, four of them. Cross one on the ground and you **stumble**, cut to 40% speed for most of a second. **Jump** it (Space) and you clear it clean, for nothing.
- **Mud** halves your speed. Go around it if you can.

Read the lane, save your legs for the end, and jump the hurdles. That is the whole race.

## The honest note

The pot is the racers' own fees, nothing more. The house takes only the 5% burn, so a race is close to zero sum, a game of skill between players.