Usually, I am not a review writer - but long story short, everyone should stay away from this game.
Let's start with some good points.
- Many opportunities
Other than that, the game is absolutely crap.
Cons
- Terrible graphics
The graphics are not too bad, but could be so much better.
- Everything costs money
To even achieve a small amount on this game, you have to spend tons of money. By this I don't mean a few dollars, but rather, a few thousand dollars. Sure you can try to go without spending any bucks, but not only will you not climb the rankings whatsoever, but you won't be able to do anything because you can't pay. Everything is much to overpriced.
-Terrible customer service
I could rant on and on about this. The customer service of howrse is complete sh*t, and I am not over-exaggerating. First off, they take such a long time to reply, and sometimes they just ingore your questions. The responses are always short and not very direct, meaning they are horrible at answering questions. Most of the time, nothing changes, and they don't do anything to help. Often they come off rude as well, and obviously are just here for the money!
- Rude players
Although this is not the fault of the actual game, it's a very important part. It is extremely rare to find any kind people, because everyone is about competition. People are so good at cheating on this game, and can really bring you down. If you do end up wasting your time playing this game, I reccomend not talking to anyone. There are so many creeps on the game as well, so make sure to stay away from that. Also, the teams are all so very toxic, it's insane.
-Favorism/can't share your opinion
This I think is a very important part to take notice of. Even if you just politely voice your opinion, karma gets docked from you, meaning you can't play the game really anymore, or worse case scenario, your account is deleted. The only opinion you can voice is if you are a Christian, and state that on your page, which is so utterly disgusting of the game.
-Time waste
Something also to note, is that if you want to make the slightest of progress on this game (not just competitively, also just for fun) you should plan on spending several hours on this game, because it is very laggy, and everything takes forever to do.
Overall, I do not recommend this game to anyone. It is so time wasting, money wasting, and absolutely crap. Please, please, even if you enjoy this game, remember it is all about the money for the producers, and you should not waste your time for them.

Money hungry corp
"We sanctioned your account because we found that you did not obey these rules. Efficient tools aid in the detection of these infringements of the rules, and the punishment is, thereby, justified; thus, we won't lift the penalty."

This is what they say when they think you are multi accounting. But there just happens to be 2 people in the same family that play howrse. Honestly s hit company. These new changes are crappy, You have to kiss the mod's asses to not get karma docked for saying anything.
PAY TO WIN GAME BY THE WAY IF NO ONE NOTICED.
Their customer service is worse then talking to a scam company. They dont listen whatsoever. Sooo if you send them alot of emails, they have to respond to every one of them. So what happens if u send 100x emails a day over small s hit in the game? IDK ima try bc im petty.
Game is dominated my people without a real life. GP race, drama, mods, the entire howrse team, they all suck butt.
Luckily i never spent money but i know a bunch that did that all got perma banned. Remember in 2018 or something, a TON of players all got banned? That was fun lul

Free speech doesnt exist in the game.
Your opinion will get you banned.
Bans people without warning
Contact us is like talking to a wall
Pay to win
Cant do anyhting for first 30 days of the game. Why not just quite within those 30 days
Gotta kiss those mod's asses to live/not get karma docked
Its literally impossible to get the divines from promos without paying.
Not every teen kid playing howrse can afford to pay 200 dollars for some useless divines.
Mad expensive
Their "Efficient tools aid in the detection" is just how much they like you.

They dont give a flying duck about the game, they just want money. Its so obv since all the new changes are so money focused(piggy bank)

This was a good game... in the beginning. Then the changes started and the constant promos. I guess the first red flag was some of the admins leaving. Admins that used to play the game and talk to us in the forums, not DOWN to us.

Major red flag for me was when there was a mass exodus of all the mods. And i still do not know the reason why. But it is very suspicious.

This game has become a cult. It is very sad but it is true.

Here is why i say that with absolute conviction

1) The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to itself.

Yes this is howrse in a nutshell the admins and mods are excessively zealous and punish any dissenters.

2)Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.

I have nothing further to say on this subject

3) The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example how one should play the game. Everyone is being told to play the same way.)

4)suppressing any dissenting opinions (example, everyone who says anything remotely against howrse is bullied and/or banned away from the forums. This serves to show others what could happen to them if they go the same route and do not totally love everything about howrse)

5)The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members ( the admins can not be called into account. The mods can not be called into account. If you want to be a mod they do not have specific rules for that but everyone knows it takes serious brown nosing. They dangle the carrot of becoming a mod as a special status

6)The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the others players of the game. This has already come into effect.

7)The team is not accountable to any one.

8)The team teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. Many years ago a dear friend and her son were banned from the game and accused of multi accounting. Just because they have the same ip address. Over the years this has happened to more and more people. When questioned the teams stated they had this "super advanced multi accounting tech sniffer" that could tell if someone on the same ip address was cheating or if there were more family members. If this is true then you would not need the spring cleaning that came and now they are claiming the pass horse change is also to stop cheaters.

When will the madness end?

9)The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt iin order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion. Need i say more?

10) Subservience to the leader or group (example if you go against the team you will be labeled a trouble maker and bullied and/or banned.

11)The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.

12)The group is preoccupied with making money.

13)Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities. (hence the unrelenting promos)

14) i am sorry should there be more? Is this not enough to convince you?

My son and I used to bond over this game.

For six months we worked our asses off to build our money and horses

Then they accused us of Multi Accounts and TOOK EVERYTHING.

When I emailed them, this was their exact response

Hello phil,

Thanks for contacting us. Having several accounts (named "Multi-using" or "multi-account") is strictly forbidden on Owlient games. Several warnings about this are mentioned in the game.

If you were punished it is because your accounts have been identified as multi-accounts. Please keep in mind that connecting to another player's account is also considered multiple accounting.

We realize there are times when players would like some help tending their horses. The game includes a Shared Account feature for use with trusted family members. When the ban is lifted and you connect to your account, please review information about Account sharing in our Game Help Breeder's Manual > Section 1.6 Account sharing.

http://us.howrse.com/aide/manuel#gestion-partage

As this identification is done with effective tools, the punishment is thus justified and will not be reversed. Please do not send further inquiries about this.

When the punishment is over (you will be able to see that when you try to connect to your account), you will be allowed to play again, but only on one account.

Thank you for your understanding.

Kind regards,
The Howrse Team

The punishment was a suspension of my sons account and a 30 day wait to play on my account

REALLY? WOW, HERES MY RESPONSE... YOU ARROGANT POS's...
GO F**K YOURSELF

My advice to any one thinking of playing... DONT WASTE YOUR TIME AND MONEY!

First off, I would just like to point out that the people who say it was better before it was owned by Owlient are misinformed. I was on the game when it was only 6 months old and I can tell you Owlient was the ORIGINAL company. The problem is that it's now owned by Owlient through Ubisoft, making Ubisoft the main source of the problem.
Before Ubisoft bought it, it didn't heavily rely on spending real money to be at the top of the pack. Today, you either have to be someone from the very start of the game that never restarted your account or be a frequent pass buyer to get up to the top.
You've also got divines and special horses that are honestly so common now because a new one comes out every month that they're not all that special anymore.
The graphics are a little too focused on being realistic that they're actually losing their touch on reality. It was far better when they were cuter. They still had a touch of realism, but were also cute.
You can only breed donkeys and drafts three times in their lifespan, no more. Honestly, if there was any kind of species that such a restriction should be put on, it should be the unicorns so that they can remain special, and remove the probability of getting a uni foal to make it a guarantee if they were to go that route. Donkeys and drafts should be able to be bred far more frequently.
The karma system (both old and new) are totally hackable. Honestly, if you're a pass buyer and don't have anything to lose, with the new system, you can just restart your game and boom. Back up to 10 karma instead of whatever number you were dropped down to. With the old system, if you lost karma, you could just buy some passes and regain them. The karma system doesn't do squat to tell you who's a bad and who's a good player. I've even had a friend that got dropped to 5 karma points and suspended for 3 days because she posted on her profile page that she wouldn't advertise the game to anyone else because it was going downhill, and Howrse marked that as an attack on them. She didn't bash on them or anything, she just said that she didn't approve of the changes being made and thus she wouldn't tell her friends to join it.
There's also the fact that trying to report someone now, can often backfire. Howrse rarely looks into the details of the situation anymore and just offers punishments straight up because someone reported someone else, and often times for something they didn't even do. You can tell someone that's begging you to sell them one of your horses no, and that's all you have to do is just tell them no, nothing else, and they can report you and you will get in trouble for it, ranging anywhere from a temporary ban from the PM system to losing karma. It's ridiculous.
The new rules are also becoming a bit absurd. They say it's to demote cheating and avoid becoming a game known for its cheating, but in all honesty, I think it's simply because they're tired of having the younger kids on the game whine about how some of the older players have more experience and knowledge on how to get around some of the road blocks in comparison. Seriously... it's called Google... you can learn just about anything from it about almost anything you want, including little tips and tricks about online games such as Howrse.
They used to have wonderful things like Riding Levels (which pretty much required you to learn a couple of things about horses so that you could improve your game experience, thus making the game educational back at the time,) quests, all sorts of wonderful and fun things, including diseases and medicine for diseases, things that made it challenging, that made you have to work to keep your horse farm productive and alive, that required you to actually think rather than coast, that got taken away because lazier kids complained about it being "too hard."
This game also has changes every month. EVERY MONTH! I am not even remotely exaggerating. Some are rule changes, some are play changes, some are changes for special accounts... but either way... way too many changes. It'd be one thing if they were bug changes, but they're not. They're often pointless changes that didn't even need changed.
I would not recommend this game. I only still play it because I have dear friends on there that I don't wish to lose contact with. If you want a horse simulation game, I would recommend Equiverse or Horse Eden Eventing. Those two games even include genetics for breeding, unlike Howrse.

I am a player on the US server of Howrse; you can find me by the name Wolfwing. I was a happy, semi-competitive skiller/crossbreeder. All was going well, until today (10/4/17) I tried to log into my account, since I get on every day, even just to do as little as play a promo or AP farm sometimes.

I hit the login button, ready to go play, and instead of my home page, there is a popup that says: "You can't continue... You cannot log in because your account is still banned for 29 days 20 hours (reason: Multiple accounts are against the GUC. Suspension of extra accounts.)"

I was confused beyond words. I didn't know why my account was banned, since my only working account is Wolfwing (I was formerly on the site in the past as cjedziniak (deleted to change the name; it wasn't possible back then) and Arctic Falcon (automatically deleted due to inactivity after just one and a half months... why?!)). I had been accepting all friend requests that were sent to me; maybe one of them hacked me. Who knows?

Over all 248 days that I have been on Howrse (as well as over 1000 more in the past), I have been on my very best behavior, obeying all the rules, even the pointless ones. I've even spent hours helping out new players on the forums. I've had perfect karma this whole time... now HALVED because a false accusation. They deleted my presentation (which brightened up many players' days), and replaced it with "Wolfwing hasn't arrived yet!".

In a month, I will be using my account for the final time... to auction my awesome horses to anyone who wants them, for just 500e per horse as the starting price. I have tons of skillers, donkeys, draft horses, unicorns, immortals, and otherwise amazing horses. Look for my auctions starting on November 5th; someone will be very satisfied.

And, just to tick off those unfair admins before I leave forever, I shall post randomness in the forums, say others' usernames (with the users' permission, of course), post memes, as well as breaking other pointless rules after my auctions are finished, just before deleting my account. I've also left behind a new second account called Wolfwing1 for you guys to deal with.

On approximately November 9th, your helpful buddy Wolfwing will be off Howrse forever. After 4 years, my account will become dead ash, like the character it was named after. Ow, I hope you are ready for the troll army coming your way!