Horse racing is one of the oldest sports, and it has undergone a remarkable transformation from a primitive contest of speed or stamina between two horses to a modern spectacle that attracts millions of people and involves staggering sums of money. Yet the fundamentals remain unchanged: a race is a competition in which a single horse wins by coming first. Behind the romanticized facade of the sport, however, are a reality of gruesome injuries, drug abuse and shattered lives.
Horses are forced to sprint, often with humans perched on their backs urging them on with a whip, at speeds that cause many to sustain injuries and even hemorrhage from the lungs. The animals are also frequently injected with cocktails of legal and illegal drugs to mask pain, hide injuries and artificially enhance their performance.
The earliest recorded horse races were four-hitch chariot and mounted (bareback) races that took place at the Olympic Games of Greece in 700-40 BCE. The sport soon spread to other ancient civilizations, including China, Persia and North Africa, where horsemanship was highly developed and the art of breeding became a major industry.
In the United States, organized racing began during the British occupation of New Amsterdam (now New York City) in 1664. The colonial officials set out a 2-mile course on Long Island and promoted the sport by offering silver cups to winners. The sport evolved into a form of speed racing as it gained popularity in the early 20th century.
In modern horse racing, a number of factors influence the outcome of a race, including the horse’s ability, its position in the starting gate, the track’s surface, its sex, age and training. A horse’s pedigree is also important as it determines what breed of horse is eligible to race. To be eligible to compete, a horse must have a sire and dam that are both purebreds of the same breed.
A race can be won by a single horse or by a group of runners called a pack. In a pack, the fastest three to five horses finish together and share the prize money. Runners are usually allocated a certain amount of weight to carry for fairness, but the horse’s race performance can also be influenced by its age, distance, sex, training and other conditions. This system is known as handicap racing. It is a central feature of horse racing and helps to ensure that the most skilled horses are rewarded for their efforts. A horse must be nominated to compete in a handicap race before a specific deadline, which can vary from race to race. The nomination process is overseen by the race’s governing body. The nominees are then ranked according to their ability and assigned a weight based on their ranking. As a result, the higher the ranking of a horse, the more weight it must carry. A lower rank means a lighter weight. The horse with the lowest weight is expected to win the race.