Found 3 ratings (with comment) on this game

Played at Pinfest in 2023.

This is something of a novelty and largely of interest to collectors of vintage arcade machines. There seems to be no way to get the ball back up to the top and actually aiming the ball to advance your horse isn’t easy (the owner of the game warned me several times to watch out as it had a tilt mechanism).

Like many vintage sideshow attractions, it is fun to play as a one-off (or maybe a few times). I enjoyed watching the little horses advance up the field. However, after playing it, I realised why pinball machines had been banned in New York in the 1930s for encouraging gambling. The reversal of the ban was doubtless due to better technology, which increased the skill involved in playing pinball, and not to a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the game.

Turf Champ is more akin to a talking parrot that you insert money into on a seaside pier, i.e. a novelty, than a pinball game as we now understand it.

I'm having trouble calling this game a pinball game.

The Pros:
A cool BG and a racetrack that takes up the middle of the PF

The Cons:
Why does this deck even have flippers? Can you even get the ball back up the PF once it passes the lower flippers?

The Takeaway:
Yes, try new things to see if they succeed, or not. This game did not succeed as a pin. You may have more fun playing a bingo as compared to this "pinball" game.

The playfield of this game looks awesome. It's plenty of fun to pick your horse and watch the field go. However, this game has two big negatives. First, there is no scoring so that kind of takes something away. The goal is to get your horse to win place or show to get replays. Secondly, the flippers are way too far apart. It's difficult to keep the ball in play. Make sure you have some real good rubbers which will give you maximum amount of rebounding if you want to have any fun. On the positive side, the playfield looks fantastic and the machine is real nice to look at. Keep in mind that this is an oversized pinball. It is the equivalent of a wide body and is a few inches longer than normal also. Despite the fact that is hard to keep the ball in play, the game has plenty of replayability. You get to select your horse and it's fun to try to get your horse to the finish line and also attempt to get three horses to the finish line. If you get 3 to the finish line the game ends.