A horse race is a sporting event that sees horses competing against each other for a purse or prize money. The first horse to cross the finish line is declared the winner. In some cases, if two or more horses cross the line together making it impossible to determine which is the fastest horse, a photo finish will be used to decide the winner.
Horse races can be either flat or jump racing. In flat races, horses are allowed to run around a track without being hindered by hurdles or fences and can achieve speeds of up to 60mph. Horses are usually ridden by jockeys who must stay on top of the horse for the duration of the race. Jump racing, on the other hand, involves a series of hurdles or fences that horses must jump over in order to reach the end of the course.
While the sport of horse racing is hugely popular worldwide and attracts some of the world’s best horses, talented jockeys and fervent fans, it is not without its dark side. The lives of race horses are often filled with stress and misery. Injuries, breakdowns and drug use are commonplace, and a horse’s death is all too frequently the outcome of a racing career. A number of scandals have rocked the industry, most notably a 2014 New York Times investigation that revealed the use of shockers on injured and sore horses.
Stakes races are regarded as the pinnacle of achievement in horse racing and embody its competitive spirit and prestige. They are also some of the most lucrative and high-profile events in the world, attracting top-notch horses and fervent fans. However, there is a growing awareness that the sport of horse racing is marred by abuse and cruelty to horses.
The rules of horse racing vary by country, but in general a race is divided into a series of races with different prize money on offer to the winners. The prize money is usually matched by the size of the field of horses. The more money that is on offer to the winners, the more difficult it is to win a race.
In some horse races, the horses are entered for a set price and can be claimed (bought) by any licensed owner at the track. This tends to equalize the class of the competition in a race and helps to prevent owners from competing against their own horses.
The earliest races were match races between two or three horses, with the owner of the winning horse providing the purse, or simple wager. Initially, an owner who withdrew forfeited half of the purse, and later all of it. As the sport became more organised, agreements were recorded by disinterested third parties, known as keepers of the match book. One of the first such match books was John Cheny’s An Historical List of All Horse-Matches Run (1729). This was consolidated by James Weatherby into the Racing Calendar, and this work was continued with a variety of names until 1773.