My Horse & Me: Riding for Gold for Wii Reviews by Gamers

They listened to us and changed the controls for the horse from their first edition of My Horse and Me. You control the horse with the joystick (nanchuk) which was hard to learn at first but the more you practice the easier it got. I took a chance with it and bought it without renting it first. I LOVE this game. It's fun to play. It took me a while to figure how to change my clothes plus my horse's outfit too. I finished the story line last night so I don't know what else to do with it except try to master some of the mini games which aren't easy for the most part. I'm thinking about going through it again with another horse and rider. As you get more advanced in the game the dressage tests and cross country courses get harder plus the show jumping can be challenging too. I never finished the amateur level for whatever reason so in the professional part the horse still jumped on its own for me. I didn't have to tell where to jump as it did it automatically. If you win a silver or bronze you can repeat the test in competition in order to win the gold. If you mess up in your dressage test and miss a few buttons (colored for different gaits), you can back your horse up, reride around then pick them up without being penalized. Use your wrist to flick the Wii remote to do the different fancy dressage moves instead of pointing the remote and trying to lift it up, down, left, right, etc. You get to feed your horse, pet it, clean up after it (several different options), etc. You have a board to look at so you know what to do to keep your horse happy. It's definitely worth a rent and by far my favorite horse game that I own. The graphics on it are amazing too!

It's time to saddle up and take on the track in three different events in My Horse and Me: Riding for Gold.
The three events are: Dressage, Show Jumping and Cross Country.
In Dressage, you have two tasks: In parts of the routine you manever your horse over several dots at the right speed (Green dots for slow, blue for medium, and red for fast.)
Other parts of the routine, you wave the Wiimote up/down/left/right.
You get a point for each dot you cross properly or each Wiimote gesture you perform propely. Most points wins.
The second event is Jumping where you manever your horse through a track filled with fences. When you get to a fence to jump over, you'll see a red arc just before the fence. When your horse enters the arc, it starts turning green. When it's fully green, you flick the Wiimote and Nunchuck up to jump the fence (if it's on easy the game will do it automatically.) Time it wrong, and the horse will knock over part of the fence and you get faults added to your course time. Lowest time wins.
The Cross Country is just like the Show Jumping, except you have a much larger area to cover and more fences to jump. Oh, and misses costs you more faults.
There's a tutorial and you can practice your maneuvers before you take on any challenge. Have problems jumping? Set it on easy.
Problem is, it can get too easy. There's only eight sets of events (eight Dressages, eight Show Jumping and Eight Cross Country) If you get third or better in each set, you unlock the next set.
The game also asks you to care for the horse, but that's done with simple pushes of the A button or wave of the Wiimote. You'll have to go out into a practice field to gather up stars every now and then, but that's no challenge, either.
There's also a group of forgettable mini games on display here.
I say most players can get through My Horse and Me: Riding for Gold in two to two and one half hours. Horse lovers should rent it, but not anyone else. SKIP IT