I was a little hesitant to write this review since at the moment version two of the Work Horse is already being manufactured. And I should preface this write up by saying I basically only play 0A. Stalls and flips and that sorta experimental funky stuff that isn’t exactly the current meta or everyone’s cup of tea.
Anywhoooo, here it goes…
The first thing I did upon receiving the V1 prototype was lace a fresh ZipLine Prestige string around it. I know it’s the only string I’ve actually tried on the Work Horse, but it was instantly perfect so I haven’t felt any need to experiment with other strings. Holding it in my hand it felt great. I had previously read all the specs so I knew the dimensions, however, until you actually hold something those numbers are fairly abstract. The size and finishing are amazing. Perfect size to be pocketable while not falling into the category of novelty. For a point of reference, here’s a few photos of the Work Horse next to other popular modern responsive yoyos:
You can see that outter diameter wise it’s pretty much on par with the others. The slimness paired with its rounded edges seem to set it apart. If I had to create a comparison to draw from, when throwing and catching something like a trapeze stall for example, it’s almost as if a TiO and metal Harbinger had a child that is now a mildly punk a$$ teenager. The guts, response and general umph at the end of the string feel very much like the TiO, while the catch zone, finishing, and stability are more related to the metal Harbinger.
After a few hours of uninterrupted throwing with it I decided to test out the weight rings. I know a lot of you are tinkerers and love things like that, changing the weight and feel while not needing a different yoyo. That being said, I’m not that way. Which is fine, to each their own. I tried a couple different weights rings and it felt way too heavy so I opted to leave those in the box.
As it stood, the Work Horse already felt mildly overweight to me in its stock form, but that led to trying new things. I found it much easier to do stall based tricks where you hop the yoyo from string to string. The additional weight helped stick the yoyo to the string better. I guess you could call it 0A tech? Think @Jerrod type stuff. Where the Work Horse proto V1 may come up a little short for those of you that enjoy incredibly light delicate stalls, it does excel at working through tricks and more creative techniques.
As far stability goes, I thought it was good. The Work Horse was just as stable as any slimmer line modern responsive I compared it against. That being said, I could see how someone intending to play 1A with it may long for increased stability. For me personally though, it wasn’t really something I even considered before realizing I should probably talk about it in this review.
After about a week, and hours of play, the bearing did require some greasing. I hadn’t messed with the bearing since receiving it, and had kept it setup with the 5mm size D bearing. With that the gap between the pads was a little shy of 3mm, or 10 USPCC cards. I’ve never measured the gap of any other bearing/response pad modern responsive yoyos before, but the Work Horse’s response gap coupled with the huge Respawn pads feels really nice. For comparison purposes here’s a few other metal and plastic modern responsive gap widths using the ultra accurate method of jamming playing cards up to the bearing until no more can be crammed in:
Work Horse Proto V1: 10 cards
Metal Harbinger: 8 cards
El TiO: 8 cards
Kasm: 7 cards (how I like mine setup)
Plastic Butterfly: 7-8 cards
Ultimately so much goes into response, I don’t know if this metric actually tells us anything important. The Harbinger has a smaller bearing, the Work Horse has larger pads, the Kasm’s pads protrude a little. So many little factors that all play a part. One thing I can attest to though is the Work Horse is snappy as all heck when the 5mm D bearing has a bit of grease in it.
In conclusion, I do feel as though the Work Horse proto V1 could stand to shed a small amount a weight. As it stands now, it seems to be somewhat a “master of none”, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s designed to be a work horse after all. It can do a bit of everything, but doesn’t exactly excel at any one thing. It has enough flair in the shape to stick back of hand stalls and catch string stalls with ease, but the heavy feel of it lends itself to a more 1A genre of style. It may take a little getting used to if basic trapeze type stall tricks are your go to, but the additional weight will help in more complex balancing string tricks.
