>>32539407actually, the point of competition and play between allied creatures is to safely hone basic physical and mental skills in order to aid in survival.
While humans, who spend untold vast sums of resources on brainpower in order to better predict, trap, follow, avoid, or socially outmaneuver other creatures, would have a large amount to gain from a game based around properly gauging and understanding the way that their words are perceived by others and the rate at which others think, the lives of ponies are not dependent on quite the same types of cleverness. Ponies are fare more durable than humans and far more dependent on social cohesion, meaning that a ponies abilities to out-think an opponent are unnecessary and didn't develop as well, because they could always just brute-force or otherwise out-agility the majority of their enemies. The rest could be taken down by simple numbers.
So it was that the important skill for ponies was not careful physiological measurement, but was instead exclusively the ability to observe the world and foster bonds. Thus, the game formed to reflect their natural needs.
As a result, ponies of higher intelligence were generally destructive and basic friendship is a topic still requiring years of research and eventual cross-examination, a total mystery to the species, something beyond their grasp, dare I say, magical.
