About Horse Racing

Horse racing is a pari-mutuel sport that is contested at race tracks around the world. In the United States the term horse racing most often refers to thoroughbred horses racing each other over a specific distance with a man riding the horse called a jockey. Thoroughbred horse racing has earned the nickname of "The Sport of Kings" over the years but has seen its popularity take a downturn as different kinds of gambling, mostly in the form of casinos, have drawn people away from it.

  1. History

    • The sport of horse racing has origins in America that go back to colonial times, specifically to Long Island, New York in the middle of the 1600s. This is where the first race course was built, supervised by New York's governor at the time. Horse tracks began to spring up across the country with two of the most famous, Saratoga Springs in New York State and Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky being built in 1863 and 1875 respectively. Belmont Park opened outside of New York City in 1905, with Santa Anita Park in California starting racing in 1934, two of the most prestigious horse racing venues in the U.S.

    Types

    • Horse racing in the U.S. is what is known as a pari-mutuel sport, with bettors wagering on the races. In pari-mutuel gaming the money that the bettors put down on each particular type of wager goes into what are called pools. The race track makes its money by taking a percentage of this money out of the pool, with the rest returned to those holding winning tickets. Besides being able to wager on horses to come in first, second, and third gamblers can make what are called exotic wagers- combinations of different numbers of horses based on how they cross the finish line. Quinielas, perfectas, trifectas, superfectas and other exotics are the most wagered on bets at a track. The amount of money bet during the course of a horse racing performance is known as the handle.

    Time Frame

    • The top horses in the country compete in what are called stakes races. The most renowned of these are the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore, Maryland at Pimlico Race Track, and the Belmont Stakes at Belmont in New York. These three comprise horse racing's Triple Crown, a test of a horse's greatness that begins the first Saturday in May in Kentucky and ends five weeks later at the Belmont. Only 11 horses have won all three legs of the Triple Crown, with the last time this occurred being in 1979.

    Geography

    • There are racetracks located throughout the US, with the most existing in California. States such as Illinois, Florida, New York, Kentucky, Maryland, Texas, New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania also have several horse tracks operating within their borders. Each state has its own pari-mutuel commission which regulates the sport.

    Expert Insight

    • The two greatest American race horses were Man O War and Secretariat. Man O War lost just once in his career, to a horse named Upset- an event which coined the term "upset" for when an underdog beat a heavy favorite. He set a host of world and American records before being retired to stud in 1920, living to the age of 30. Secretariat won the Triple Crown in 1973, setting track records that still stand in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes. He won 16 of 21 career races and his run in the Belmont Stakes was so awesomely impressive that over 5,000 people held on to their winning tickets as souvenirs rather than cash them in. He made a list of the 100 greatest athletes of the 20th century; Secretariat was the only non-human on this list.