Knowing Nintendo I bet they made it horse racing because Yoshi on Yoshi action looked a little off.

Oh come on, do you think anyone would complain about a Yoshi using a Yoshi as his ride ? we know there are multiple Yoshis in the Mushroom  Kingdom, if you really don't want Yoshi to ride on another Yoshi then you could give him Poochy...

Seriously ?

Sure horse riding is a dumb choice, but that Mario Sports game was the best part of the direct in my opinion. Let's just hope it turns out good and not trash, focusing on one sport (football) and making it great instead of trying to incorporate multiple sports in one game would be a lot safer...

I think it's quite possible they'll all just turn out mediocre, rather then if they just focused on making a Mario Strikers game and it would have been great.

One great experience is better than five shallow experiences.

Seems extraordinarily unlikely, though... just read that the soccer is 11v11 rather than the 4v4 in strikers....

The Tennis Section surely isn't going to be better than Mario Tennis Open.

Their is a dedicated Mario Golf game on 3ds already too, so that'll no doubt be better...

The Football section most likely isn't going to come close to Super Mario Strikers/Charged...

There was a Mario Baseball game on GC and Wii too...

Really I think 4 out of the 5 experiences they are going to offer will be inferior to products they have already released, 2 of which are available on the 3ds. The 5th is horse riding.

They've already done golf and tennis on 3ds, they should have just made a dedicated strikers or baseball game, I don't have high hopes at all the more I look into it and think about it... I was excited for it till I just learned that the football is 11v11.... it might be surprise me but I now expect it to be extremely mediocre.

Come on, man! Everyone knows horse riding is the best thing since pancakes.

I was concerned about this too but a few things helped allieviate my concerns a bit:

In the direct Bill said you'd be surprised by the depth of each experience, I mean it could be a lie, but i think they realize the dissapointment of some of their multi game type experiences and a few bad sports games (well really just Mario tennis on wii u) and want to put out a better experience.

Also, they already have a mario tennis and mario golf game on the 3ds. That probably gave them a hed start in development for time saving on those titles as they could use the same engine and structure for those parts of the game.

Even without horse riding there is still 4 full blown sports in one package, which is a good deal. Remember when nintendo sold one sport as a standalone game like mario baseball, mario golf and more recently mario ultra smash tennis.

Or you could, you know, have Yoshi run by himself without a rider? (:

But regarding the OPs putting as "how many people ride horse's" I'll be honest, I have actually played almost zero of the sports I've ever enjoyed in a video game, While it was enjoyable in NHL Hitz to crush someone into a wall and break glass with their bodies... it didn't make me want to get out there and do this, if Nintendo puts their charm on the aspects of this game then it will be fun to play, regardless of how few of the players might have played the original "sport"

Also going to point out that they don't really simulate the real sport, so it isn't like this being played on a 3DS is so much different from pressing B to kick a football or Y to lob a Tennis ball over the other side of an arena, just trust Nintendo to make it a fun game, regardless of the horses!

This is another point I'm kind of surprised nobody is really addressing...

Why are these two sports featured when they already have their own games???

Mario Golf World Tour was a dud in sales but there was actually a lot of content there (even if you did have to pay for some of it separately)...

And Mario Tennis might not have been as robust in comparison but sold pretty well, and is a Nintendo Selects title in Europe (and should be one in North Anerica)...

It's not my intention to say this title looks bad or that it's a bad decision, but I won't pretend to understand Nintendo's thought process...