Sport of Kings is a real money game. Therefore you can lose/win real cash. You can lodge (using Stripe) in your local currency but the dollar is used on this site.
The site is based on a subscription type model. This means that you pay a monthly fee (Stable Fees) to the site and you can enter your horses as many times as you like.
Entry fee/nomination fee for races is $0. Even these free races will have cash and/or bonus credits for the winner and placed horses.
At a guess, free races make up 80% of all scheduled races. There are higher end races with bigger pots that require a supplementary entry fee.
Sport of Kings is very affordable, especially if you want to play at the lower end.
You can NOT choose the race tactics or the jockey for your horse. Your horse can race competitively every 3 days and can start racing at the age of 2. A horse can race up to 8 years old. After this, once he/she turns nine, the horse is retired to stud where they become eligible to breed. It is not common for a horse to live past 18 years of age.
A racing season lasts 3 months and a new season begins each January, April, July and October.
Race distances range from 1000m to 3200M and there are four different typyes of going (Good, Fast, Firm and Soft), Typically a horse will have a ground preference, only a few horses work equally on all 4 goings/surfaces.
There are 2 types of training, farm training and public work training, the difference can be found HERE. You can give your horse 2 training runs per day and these training runs can be used to evaluate the 3 pieces of equipment you can apply to a horse, that may or may not assist the horse. Blinkers, Ear Muffs or Tongue Tie.