I Love Horses 3 Pack (www.viva-media.com, $19.95) includes three horse-related simulation games: My Riding Stables 2, Blue Ribbon Show Jumper, and Championship Riding Star, all geared to young people who love or ride horses.

Each game starts by letting you choose whether you play as a girl or boy, how you dress, and what breed, color and features your horse will have during game play. Then it’s on to your choice of game:

My Riding Stables 2 gives you a "real world" challenge by putting you in charge of riding stables that are nearly in ruins from neglect. It’s your job to take over the farm and turn it into a thriving riding facility that will attract people and their horses. The farm is located in a beautiful area, with creeks, mountains and forests nearby. Your challenge is to manage your time and take care of yourself (with enough sleep, proper nutrition and exercise), restore the horse farm facilities and take loving care of the horses. As you train and care for the horses, you’re able to ride freely in the beautiful countryside around the farm. And after you have upgraded the stables and restored the farm, you can compete for the cup in the big cross country races and make the estate a horse farm tourist attraction.

Blue Ribbon Show Jumper lets you train your horse by creating and riding it in increasingly difficult courses. There are indoor and outdoor courses and individualized settings to use with any of the hundreds of horses you can choose to train. You’ll be able to test your riding skills by jumping the 12 built-in courses, or create your own custom course with various obstacle combinations. You can then share the courses you’ve created and compete with an online community if you want.

Championship Riding Star features a 3D riding simulation that lets you have the feel of the balance and rhythm of riding, just as though you were sitting in a real saddle. You’ll need to groom, feed and care for your horse, and you also need to train it. But once you have done this, you can compete with your chosen horse in any of several categories of competitive riding, including dressage, jumping, and military. You can also control your horse’s moves (even viewing from different camera angles) to improve your skills. There’s an option to compete in an online community if you have an Internet connection.

Each of the games offers realistic settings and beautifully rendered horses and backgrounds, and horse lovers will have fun combining their managing, riding and jumping skills. Players can change their on-screen character and appearance at any time, and they can also change the type and characteristics of horses they ride and care for. Game play is fun and easy, there are tutorials and onscreen hints to help, and the variety of scenarios makes each of the games more interesting and challenging. Sure to appeal to the horse riding crowd.