The 1972 Williams Winner is a two player wide body EM pinball with mechanical horses under the playfield (seen through a playfield window.) There are four flippers and two slingshots (no pop bumpers, unusual for an EM pinball), and uses a motorized turret shooter which sends the ball into play from between the lower flippers. The machine picks the players' horse at start of the game. The object is to get your horse number (there are six horses) to the finish line, by hitting the associated target for that horse number. Do this on the first ball and five replays are awarded! Get to the finish line on the second ball, three replays awarded. Do it on the third (last) ball, one replay is given. This is a tricky job because you can hit the other horses' targets, causing them to move up the track, and accidentally getting one of the other five horse to the finish line before your horse. This of course means your horse can't win...

Note Williams made some other horse racing games. The first was the 1951 Hayburners (and some others with different themes like boat and car racing in 1951), and then 1958 Turf Champ, 1960 Nags, and 1968 Derby Day and 1968 Hayburners II. These are all different (well except for Turf Champ) in that the mechanical horses are in the backbox. Turf Champ has the mechanical horse on the actual playfield, and Winner has them *under* the playfield, seen through a plexiglass window. In fact, the entire playfield on Winner is plexiglass (pretty unique for a pinball playfield.) The disadvantage to having the horse on (or under) the playfield is it consumes much playing space (that's why these games are wide body), but the player can see the action better than having the horses in the backbox.

This is the actual game at the VFW Pinball Museum. Any questions regardling this game, or any games for sale, please email the VFW Pinball Museum at
info@vfwpinball.com

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