Horse Racing The Arc

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The actual largest racing group in the UK, Arena Racing Company (ARC) has 16 racecourses and 2 greyhound stadia, as well as hotels, golf clubs and a spa. Horse Racing Aidan O'Brien with his son Joseph Aidan O'Brien has withdrawn all four of his horses from Sunday's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in Paris after they tested positive for a banned substance. The races Emirates Poule d'Essai des Poulains and Emirates Poule d'Essai des Pouliches are two eagerly-anticipated races that crown the best 3-year-old colt and filly over the mile distance. These two horse races are decisive to how the rest of the season pans out, and are an almost-obligatory rite of passage for any illustrious racing career. Do not miss the new generation of champions. The Arc is not only a horse race, it is 'the race' for France and for all of Europe. The highest class turf horses from Europe and in fact the world compete annually for the prestigious trophy. Legendary jockey Frankie Dettori has the record for most wins in the Arc, he has won the race an amazing 6 times. French trainer Andre Fabre is the king. Arc betting is always competitive and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe represents the culmination of the flat horse racing season. It is the final opportunity to have a bet, in Europe at least, on the top talents that have emerged during the season. The race is usually held on the first Sunday in October at Longchamp, Paris, over a mile and four furlongs.

Typically, Thoroughbreds are raced with a rider astride and Standardbreds with the horse pulling a conveyance with a driver. Though racing has an ancient lineage, the first regularly organized national races were established in England under Charles II (r. 1660–85), and the first in North America were held on Long Island in 1665. These early races were match events between two or three horses and were run in heats; a horse had to complete at least two heats to be judged the winner. By the mid-18th century, larger fields of runners and single-race 'dash' events were the norm. Handicap racing emerged in the mid-18th century as well, as gambling came to be a standard part of horse racing. Pari-mutuel betting was instituted in the 20th century. Thoroughbred racing, conducted on a flat, elliptical, mile-long track, attracts the largest purses, followed by harness racing and quarter-horse racing. The most important U.S. Thoroughbred races are the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes. See also steeplechase.

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Introduction
United States and Canada.
Suspense surrounded the voting for the 1993 horse of the year and also for virtually all of the divisional champions as many outstanding performers emerged but few horses dominated during an eventful season of competition. All of the champion Thoroughbreds of 1993, selected by ballot among representatives of the Thoroughbred Racing Association, Daily Racing Form, and the National Turf Writers Association, were to be honoured at the Eclipse Awards dinner in New Orleans, La., on Feb. 4, 1994.
Several strong horse of the year candidates—Kotashaan, Lure, and Star of Cozzene—came from the ranks of turf racing. The French-bred Kotashaan captured six of his nine starts in the United States while competing exclusively over the grass. His victories included the Breeders' Cup Turf and four other Grade I stakes, bringing his 1993 earnings to $1,984,100. Star of Cozzene won 6 of his 11 starts on the turf, including the Arlington Million and the Man o' War. He also finished second four times and earned $1,620,744 for the year. Lure gained six wins in eight grass-course starts and $1,212,323 in earnings. His biggest accomplishment was winning the Breeders' Cup Mile for the second straight year.
Both Kotashaan and Star of Cozzene were sold to Japanese owners late in the year. On November 28 the two horses met in the Japan Cup, a 1 1/2-mi event, in which Kotashaan finished second after jockey Kent Desormeaux misjudged the finish line. Star of Cozzene ran fifth.
The champion two-year-old colt would be decided between Dehere and Brocco. Dehere won four straight stakes, including the Hopeful and Champagne, before finishing a disappointing eighth to Brocco in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, a race in which Dehere hemorrhaged. Brocco won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile by a commanding five lengths but then lost to Valiant Nature in the Hollywood Futurity in his final start of the year.
The three-year-old-colt division was headed by Triple Crown race winners Sea Hero, which captured the Kentucky Derby; Prairie Bayou, champion of the Preakness; and Colonial Affair, which won the Belmont. Sea Hero was awarded the $1 million Triple Crown bonus, making him the leading money-winning Thoroughbred of 1993, with earnings of $2,484,190. His only other win in nine starts during the year was the Travers, and he thus became the first colt in more than half a century to win that race and the Kentucky Derby.
The ill-fated colt Prairie Bayou established his class early in the season with several stakes wins and then finished second to Sea Hero in the Kentucky Derby. He went on to post an impressive victory in the Preakness before going on to the Belmont and suffering a fatal injury. He had won five of his eight starts and more than $1.4 million.
Colonial Affair, the Belmont winner ridden by Julie Krone (see BIOGRAPHIES (Krone, Julie )), finished second to Miner's Mark in the Jockey Club Gold Cup later in the year. Miner's Mark, which defeated older horses in the Gold Cup, became a contender for championship honours with the win.
The battle for the champion older horse of 1993 was between Devil His Due and Bertrando. Devil His Due, a four-year-old, won four major handicaps from March to July, including the Gulfstream Park Handicap, the Pimlico Special, and the Suburban, earning just under $2 million. He then lost five straight races. Bertrando, runner-up in the Breeders' Cup Classic, was the second leading money-winning Thoroughbred of 1993, with earnings of $2,227,800. His three wins in nine starts included the Woodward, in which he galloped home by 13 1/2 lengths, and the Pacific Classic.
The biggest upset in Breeders' Cup history took place on November 6 at Santa Anita when the five-year-old Arcangues scored a two-length victory in the $3 million Classic at odds of 133-1. It was his only start in the U.S. in 1993 and his first race over the dirt.
The champion three-year-old filly appeared destined to be decided between Sky Beauty, which dominated competition on the East Coast, and Hollywood Wildcat, her West Coast counterpart. Sky Beauty won the New York filly Triple Crown (Acorn, Mother Goose, and Coaching Club American Oaks) and then captured the Alabama for her fifth win in six starts. Hollywood Wildcat, winner of several major stakes in California, scored her biggest claim to the award in her division when she defeated older champion Paseana by a nose in the Breeders' Cup Distaff, a race in which Sky Beauty finished fifth.
Leaders in the two-year-old-filly division included Sardula, winner of the Hollywood Starlet, and Phone Chatter, which defeated Sardula by a head after a stretch-long chase in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies. By virtue of her three major-stakes wins during the year, including the Spinster, Paseana was expected to repeat as champion older mare in spite of her loss in the Breeders' Cup Distaff.
Honours for champion turf female were clinched by Flawlessly for the second straight year. Her four wins in five starts included a win in the Matriarch Stakes for the third straight year.
Even though Meafara finished second in the Breeders' Cup Sprint for the second consecutive year, she did win four of eight starts and seemed to be the leader of the competition for champion sprinter of 1993.
Mike E. Smith, with more than $13 million and a record 61 major stakes victories, led all the nation's jockeys in purse winnings in 1993, while Russell Baze emerged the leader in races won for the second straight year. Robert Frankel topped the nation's trainers in purse winnings, dethroning perennial champion D. Wayne Lukas, who had won the honour for 10 straight seasons.
Peteski, winner of the Canadian Triple Crown and conqueror of some of the finest American-based horses of 1993 in the Molson Export Million Stakes, was named Canada's horse of the year. He also won a Sovereign Award as Canada's champion three-year-old male.
Sovereign Awards also went to Comet Shine (two-year-old male), Term Limits (two-year-old filly), Deputy Jane West (three-year-old filly), Cozzene's Prince (older male), Dance For Donna (older female), Hero's Love (turf horse), and Apelia (sprinter). Individual achievement Sovereigns were won by Roger Attfield (outstanding trainer), Robert Landry (outstanding jockey), and Kinghaven Farms (outstanding breeder).
Europe and Australia.
For the second straight year, the English Derby winner was sold to a Japanese breeder before the end of the season. Commander in Chief, which also won the Irish Derby, followed the 1992 English Derby winner, Dr. Devious, to Japan. The Japanese also bought the Italian Derby winner, White Muzzle. And although they failed to buy the Prix du Jockey-Club (French Derby) winner, Hernando, that colt's owner, Stavros Niarchos, did accept their offer for his top three-year-old miler, Kingmambo, winner of two major stakes races in France and another in England.
Opera House, conqueror of White Muzzle and Commander in Chief by 1 1/2 lengths and a short head in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes at Ascot in July, was another that was to begin his stud career in Japan in 1994. Sheikh Muhammad, who raced Opera House, had also leased his 1989 Prix du Jockey-Club and Irish Derby winner, Old Vic, to a Japanese stud. But that arrangement was for one year only.
All this activity was taking place at a time when business in Japan was entering a recession. But that nation's Thoroughbred racing and breeding industries were responding to pressure, particularly from the United States, to offer greater opportunities to foreign-bred horses. Japanese racing was the richest in the world in 1993, and its ruling body, the Japan Racing Association, was determined to be ready to face an influx of horses from all the principal breeding nations. For that reason, it was encouraging Japanese breeders to purchase many of the world's best horses.
The abiding memory from the season in Britain was sure to be the two false starts for the Grand National steeplechase. Only 9 of the 39 horses responded to signals of the second false start. The remainder set off and, although many riders realized the problem and pulled up at halfway, 12 continued on the second circuit and 7 completed the course. The race was declared void, and more than £60 million (about $90 million) had to be returned to backers.
Commander in Chief did not reappear after his Ascot defeat, but Opera House and White Muzzle met again in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp on October 3. They appeared to have the race between them until Urban Sea, a 37-1 long shot, swept past them during the final furlong. Urban Sea, a filly whose owners were from Hong Kong and Taiwan, beat White Muzzle by a neck. Opera House was half a length farther back in third, and the English Oaks winner, Intrepidity, stayed on to finish fourth in a field of 23.
Urban Sea, which was attempting the distance (1 1/2 mi) for the first time, was a daughter of the Kentucky-based Miswaki, a horse that competed at much shorter distances but was also responsible for Misil, the best horse seen in Italy for some years. Misil won the Gran Premio del Jockey Club (1 1/2 mi) two weeks after finishing an unlucky seventh in the Arc. He was also a close second to Opera House in the Eclipse Stakes and to the surprising Breeders' Cup Classic winner, Arcangues, in the Prix d'Ispahan. By November Misil, too, was in Japanese ownership.
Racing
The human star of European racing was undoubtedly André Fabre, whose Chantilly stable housed the winners of 34 of the 107 Group I race winners in France, including Arcangues. Fabre also won the English Two Thousand Guineas with Zafonic, the English Oaks with Intrepidity, the Irish Oaks with Wemyss Bight, and the Turf Classic with Apple Tree.
Vintage Crop wrote a new chapter in the history of international racing when he won the Melbourne Cup by three lengths from Te Akau Nick on November 3. Also winner of the Irish St. Leger, the seven-year-old gelding was the first horse trained in the Northern Hemisphere to win Australia's greatest race.
Racing
Harness Racing
In winning a $75,000 leg of the Driscoll Series at the Meadowlands in New Jersey in June, four-year-old pacing gelding Staying Together became harness racing's fastest race miler. His 1 min 48.4 sec broke the previous record of 1 min 49.4 sec set in 1992 at the Meadowlands by Artsplace and equaled the world's fastest time-trial clocking set by Matt's Scooter as a three-year-old in 1988. Staying Together, trained by Robert McIntosh and regularly driven by William O'Donnell for Canadian owner Robert Hamather, won the $205,000 Driscoll final in 1 min 49.4 sec. He appeared to have assured himself of Horse of the Year honours when in October he won the $396,810 Breeders Crown for aged pacers and then completed his campaign by winning the $200,000 Fraser Memorial at Northlands Park in Edmonton, Alta. His 21 victories in 26 starts gave the son of Panorama earnings of just over $1.1 million in 1993.
In August Cambest, a five-year-old son of Cam Fella, became the fastest harness horse of all time with an electrifying 1-min 46.2-sec time trial at Springfield, Ill. William O'Donnell drove the pacer for trainer Fred Grant to demolish the 1-min 48.4-sec record held jointly by Matt's Scooter and Staying Together.
Presidential Ball established an all-age world record on a 5/8-mi track when Jack Moiseyev guided the three-year-old son of Cam Fella to win the $197,472 final of the Miller Memorial at Rosecroft Raceway in Maryland in 1 min 50.6 sec in May. Trained by Bill Robinson for Canadian owner Tony Chiaravalle, Presidential Ball also won the $1 million North America Cup at Greenwood Raceway in Toronto in a track-record 1 min 51 sec and the $1 million Meadowlands Pace at the Meadowlands in 1 min 50 sec. Later the same month, Presidential Ball suffered only his second defeat of the year when archrival Life Sign (driven by John Campbell) won the $301,760 final of the Art Rooney Memorial at Yonkers Raceway, N.Y., in 1 min 52.2 sec on a half-mile track, with Riyadh nosing Presidential Ball out of second.
At Delaware, Ohio, in September, Life Sign turned in the performance of his career to win the coveted Little Brown Jug. Driven brilliantly by Campbell, he prevailed in back-to-back heats of 1 min 52 sec (a world record) over a track dulled by afternoon showers. The son of Abercrombie completed his year by winning the $300,000 Breeders Crown for three-year-old pacing colts at Freehold, N.J., in October, pushing his career earnings past $1.8 million.
Driven by Ron Pierce, the three-year-old colt American Winner in August at the Meadowlands won the $1 million Hambletonian with a 1-min 53.2-sec elimination-heat victory before romping home over archrival Pine Chip in the final with a 1-min 53.4-sec clocking. The time was a world record for two heats by a three-year-old trotter, and the first effort represented the fastest-ever Hambletonian heat win. Soon afterward, American Winner finished first in a $92,500 division of the Zweig Memorial at Syracuse, N.Y., in 1 min 52.6 sec, the second fastest trotting race mile of all time, behind Mack Lobell's 1 min 52.2 sec at Springfield in 1987. Attempting to become the first trotting Triple Crown winner since his sire, Super Bowl, in 1972, American Winner lost to Pine Chip in the Kentucky Futurity after breaking stride repeatedly in the second heat. Pine Chip had won the $532,000 World Trotting Derby at Du Quoin, Ill., in straight heats in September and in October added the $300,000 Breeders Crown three-year-old trot.
Queen L, a seven-year-old mare, wheeled 17 rivals in the final stage to win the Prix d'Amerique over 1 5/8 mi at Vincennes, France, in January. The 1993 Elitlopp, run at Solvalla, Sweden, in June, was won by Sea Cove, a seven-year-old stallion owned and trained in Germany and bred in Canada.
New Zealand-bred seven-year-old gelding Franco Tiger, trained in Victoria by Glenn Tippet for Eric Anderson, was a clear-cut winner of the 1992-93 Inter-Dominion Grand Circuit title, winning four of the eight events. The $NZ 300,000 New Zealand Cup, run November 9 at Addington, Christchurch, was won by Chokin, a five-year-old pacer recording his 19th win in 26 starts.

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Introduction
sport of running horses (horse) at speed, mainly Thoroughbreds (Thoroughbred) with a rider astride or Standardbreds (Standardbred) with the horse pulling a conveyance with a driver. These two kinds of racing are called racing on the flat and harness racing. Some races on the flat involve jumping. This article is confined to Thoroughbred horse racing on the flat without jumps. For jumping races, seesteeplechase, point-to-point, and hurdle races. For racing on the flat with horses other than Thoroughbreds, seequarter-horse racing. See alsoharness racing.
Although horse racing is one of the oldest of all sports, its basic concept has undergone virtually no change over the centuries. It has developed from a primitive contest of speed or stamina between two horses into a spectacle involving large fields of runners, sophisticated electronic monitoring equipment, and immense sums of money, but its essential feature has always been the same: the horse that finishes first is the winner. In the modern era horse racing developed from a diversion of the leisure class into a huge public-entertainment business. Derby Day at Epsom, England, where the public is admitted onto parts of the grounds at no fee, has drawn as many as 500,000 spectators. Attendance at both flat and harness racing in many countries is the highest or among the highest of all sports.
Knowledge of the first horse race is lost in prehistory. Both four-hitch chariot and mounted (bareback) races were held in the Olympic Games of Greece over the period 700–40 BC. Horse racing, both of chariots and of mounted riders, was a well-organized public entertainment in the Roman Empire. The history of organized racing in other ancient civilizations is not very firmly established. Presumably, organized racing began in such countries as China, Persia, Arabia, and other countries of the Middle East and of North Africa, where horsemanship early became highly developed. Thence came too the Arabian, Barb, and Turk horses that contributed to the earliest European racing. Such horses became familiar to Europeans during the Crusades (11th to 13th century AD), from which they brought those horses back.
Racing in medieval England began when horses for sale were ridden in competition by professional riders to display the horses' speed to buyers. During the reign of Richard the Lion-Heart (1189–99), the first known racing purse was offered, £40, for a race run over a 3-mile (4.8-km) course with knights as riders. In the 16th century Henry VIII imported horses from Italy and Spain (presumably Barbs) and established studs at several locations. In the 17th century James I sponsored meetings in England. His successor, Charles I, had a stud of 139 horses when he died in 1649.
Charles II (reigned 1660–85) became known as “the father of the English turf” and inaugurated the King's Plates, races for which prizes were awarded the winners. His articles for these races were the earliest national racing rules. The horses raced were six years old and carried 168 pounds (76 kg), and the winner was the first to win two 4-mile (6.4-km) heats. The patronage of Charles II established Newmarket as the headquarters of English racing.
In North America Richard Nicolls (Nicolls, Richard), governor of the colony of New York, in 1665 offered a silver cup, the first known North American racing trophy, to be run for at Hampstead Plain, Long Island. Thus began course racing in North America.
In France the first documented horse race was held in 1651 as the result of a wager between two noblemen. During the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715), racing based on gambling was prevalent. Louis XVI (reigned 1774–93) organized a jockey club and established rules of racing by royal decree that included requiring certificates of origin for horses and imposing extra weight on foreign horses.
The earliest races were match races between two horses, or at most three, the owners providing the purse, a simple wager. An owner who withdrew commonly forfeited half the purse, later the whole purse, and bets also came under the same “play or pay” rule. Agreements were recorded by disinterested third parties, who came to be called keepers of the match book. One such keeper at Newmarket, John Cheny, began publishing Cheny's Horse Matches (1727), a consolidation of match books at various racing centres; and this work was continued annually with varying titles, until in 1773 James Weatherby established it as the Racing Calendar, continued thereafter by his family.
By the mid-18th century, the demand for more public racing had produced open events with larger fields of runners. Eligibility rules were developed based on the age, sex, birthplace, and previous performance of horses and the qualifications of riders. Races were created in which owners were the riders (gentlemen riders); in which the field was restricted geographically to a township or county; and in which only horses that had not won more than a certain amount were entered. An act of the British Parliament of 1740 provided that horses entered had to be the bona fide property of the owners, thus preventing “ringers,” a superior horse entered fraudulently against inferior horses; horses had to be certified as to age; and there were penalties for rough riding.
Horse
Contemporary accounts identified riders (in England called jockeys—if professional—from the second half of the 17th century and later in French racing), but their names were not at first officially recorded. Only the names of winning trainers and riders were at first recorded in the Racing Calendar, but by the late 1850s all were named. This neglect of the riders is partly explained in that when races consisted of 4-mile heats, with two heats won needed for victory, the individual rider's judgment and skill were not so vital. As dash racing (one heat) became the rule, a few yards in a race gained importance, and consequently so did the rider's skill and judgment in coaxing that advantage from his mount.

Horse Racing Archives

All horse racing on the flat except quarter-horse racing involves Thoroughbred horses. Thoroughbreds evolved from a mixture of Arab, Turk, and Barb horses with native English stock. Private studbooks had existed from the early 17th century, but they were not invariably reliable. In 1791 Weatherby published An Introduction to a General Stud Book, the pedigrees being based on earlier Racing Calendars and sales papers. After a few years of revision, it was updated annually. All Thoroughbreds are said to descend from three “Oriental” stallions (the Darley Arabian, the Godolphin Barb, and the Byerly Turk, all brought to Great Britain, 1690–1730) and from 43 “royal” mares (those imported by Charles II). The preeminence of English racing and hence of the General Stud Book from 1791 provided a standard for judging a horse's breeding (and thereby, at least to some degree, its racing qualities). In France the Stud Book Française (beginning in 1838) originally included two classifications: Orientale (Arab, Turk, and Barb) and Anglais (mixtures according to the English pattern), but these were later reduced to one class chevaux de pur sang Anglais (“horses of pure English blood”). The American Stud Book dates from 1897 and includes foals from Canada, Puerto Rico, and parts of Mexico, as well as from the United States.
The longstanding reciprocity among studbooks of various countries was broken in 1913 by the Jersey Act passed by the English Jockey Club, which disqualified many Thoroughbred horses bred outside England or Ireland. The purpose of the act was ostensibly to protect the British Thoroughbred from infusions of North American (mainly U.S.) sprinting blood. After a rash of victories in prestigious English races by French horses with “tainted” American ancestry in the 1940s, the Jersey Act was rescinded in 1949.
The Jockey Club, founded at Newmarket about 1750, wrote its own rules of racing. In contrast to the earlier King's Plates rules, these new rules took into account different kinds of contests involving horses of different ages and were thus made more detailed. The new rules originally applied only to Newmarket, but, when the rules were printed in the Racing Calendar, they served as a model for rules everywhere. The Jockey Club acquired the Racing Calendar and the General Stud Book and finally in the 19th century came to control English racing, as it still does.
In France, La Société d'Encouragement pour l'Amélioration des Races de Chevaux en France (founded 1833) administers French racing, owns major racetracks and training centres, and, since 1969, has published the country's racing calendar. The studbook is published by the Ministry of Agriculture.
In the United States, the governance of racing resides in state commissions. Track operation is private. The (North American) Jockey Club, founded in 1894 in New York, at one time exercised wide but not complete control of American racing. It publishes the Racing Calendar and the American Stud Book.
English racing spread to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, and India in the 19th century, and many of their governing bodies emulate the British.
The original King's Plates were standardized races—all were for six-year-old horses, carrying 168 pounds, at four-mile heats, a horse having to win two heats to be adjudged the winner. Beginning in 1751, five-year-olds carrying 140 pounds and four-year-olds carrying 126 pounds were admitted to the King's Plates, and heats were reduced to two miles. Other racing for four-year-olds was well established by then, and a race for three-year-olds carrying 112 pounds in one three-mile heat was run in 1731. Heat racing for four-year-olds continued in the United States until the 1860s. By that time, heat racing had long since been overshadowed in Europe by dash racing, a “dash” being any race decided by only one heat, regardless of its distance.
The beginning of the modern era of racing is generally considered to have been the inauguration of the English classic races: the St. Leger (Saint Leger) in 1776, the Oaks in 1779, and the Derby in 1780. All were dashes for three-year-olds. To these races were later added the Two Thousand Guineas in 1809 and the One Thousand Guineas in 1814. During the 19th century, races of the English classic pattern—dashes for three-year-olds carrying level weights—spread all over the world. The French classics are the Prix du Jockey Club (1836), the Grand Prix du Paris (1863), and the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (1920). The American classics are the Belmont Stakes (1867), the Preakness Stakes (1873), and the Kentucky Derby (1875).
One major type of Thoroughbred horse race is the handicap race, in which the weights horses must carry during a race are adjusted in relation to their age (the more immature the horse, the less weight it carries). In this system, a two-year-old, the youngest racer, competes with less weight to carry than a horse that is three years or older. In general, a horse is reckoned as being fully aged at five years and is handicapped accordingly. There are also sex allowances for fillies, so that they carry slightly lower weights than males. Weight penalties or allowances are also provided on the basis of individual horses' past performance. Such handicaps may be set centrally where racing is so controlled or by individual tracks, the goal being to render all horses as nearly equal as possible by establishing what is called racing form. The handicap race thus represents an outright repudiation of the classic concept that the best horse should win. Instead, handicaps are assigned with the specific objective of giving all the horses in a race an equal chance of winning.
Some handicap races are major sporting events. For instance, the Melbourne Cup, a handicap inaugurated in 1861, is the most important race of the Southern Hemisphere. In the United States the Metropolitan, Brooklyn, and Suburban handicaps—all dating to the 19th century—were once the most valuable American events and remain reasonably comparable to the classics. The Santa Anita Handicap, first run in 1935, pioneered among such races with $100,000 or more purse value.
A racehorse achieves peak ability at age five, but the classic age of three years and the escalating size of purses, breeding fees, and sale prices have led to fewer races held with horses beyond age four. There are notable exceptions to this, however. Famous races that admit horses older than three include the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, the Gran Premio Internacionale Carlos Pellegrini in Argentina, the Caulfield and Sydney cups in Australia, the Grande Premio São Paolo Internacional in Brazil, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes in England, the Gran Premio del Jockey Club and Gran Premio di Milano in Italy, the Emperor's Cup and Arima Memorial Stakes in Japan, the Wellington Cup in New Zealand, Rothman's July Handicap in South Africa, and the Gran Premio Clasico Simón Bolívar in Venezuela. Of about 60 races in the United States with purses of $100,000 or more, about half are open to horses older than three years.
Sponsored races in which much of the purse money is put up by commercial firms include the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and Rothman's July Handicap. In the United States most of the purse money for the richest events is provided by the stakes fees of the owners. Purses were winner-take-all in the early days of racing, but as the racing of fields of horses came to predominate, a second prize came to be offered. Gradually third and fourth prizes were added, and occasionally fifth. On the average, modern-day purses are allocated about 60 percent to the winner, 20 percent to the second-place finisher, 10 percent to the third, and 5 percent to the fourth.
The same historical progression was followed for wagers, with the bets in early (two-horse) races being simply to win, and modern bets being placed on the first three horses (win, place, and show). From private bets, wagering was extended in the 19th century to bookmaking (a bookmaker is a professional bet accepter who tries to set his odds so that a percentage is working in his favour). Later in the century, betting was taken over worldwide by the racetrack managements in the form of the pari-mutuel. This is a common betting pool in which those who bet horses finishing in the first three places share the total amount bet minus a percentage for the management. The pari-mutuel was perfected with the introduction in the 20th century of the totalizator, a machine that mechanically records bets and can provide an almost instant reflection of betting in all pools. It displays the approximate odds to win on each horse and the total amount of wagering on each horse in each of various betting pools. The customary pools are win, place, and show, and there are such specialty wagers as the daily double (winners of the first two races), perfecta (win and place winners in order in one race), quiniela (as in the perfecta but not in order), and trifecta (win, place, show winners in order in one race). Other specialty wagers, sometimes offering extremely high payouts, require the bettor to select multiple trifectas, the winners of several races, or the first four horses in one race.
As racing became big business, governments entered wagering with off-track betting, which was very beneficial to racing in Australia, New Zealand, and France and less so in England and in New York City. In the United States illegal bookmaking off track became the province of organized crime; legal off-track betting parlours proliferated during the late 20th century.
The guiding principle for breeding (animal breeding) winning racehorses has always been best expressed as “breed the best to the best and hope for the best.” The performance of a breeding horse's progeny is the real test, but, for horses untried at stud, the qualifications are pedigree, racing ability, and physical conformation.
The ownership of racetracks ranges from complete state control, in which case the national government may own the tracks and horses and employ trainers, jockeys, grooms, and other necessary personnel, to complete private enterprise, as in most of the United States (where tracks are privately owned and operated for profit, as are the horses, and trainers and jockeys are independent contractors). In-between conditions include government ownership of tracks and in some cases horses, which are leased, and nonprofit privately owned tracks, as in Australia and the New York Racing Association.
Racetrack stands range from the elegant (Longchamp in France, Ascot in England) to the modest and purely functional (Cologne, the Curragh in Ireland). The same variety is true of the saddling area, the paddock. Most European and other racing surfaces are grass; in North and South America the common surface is dirt, though grass became increasingly popular in the 20th century. Racing is mainly in the daytime.
Older racetracks, mainly European, conform to natural terrain, accommodations for spectators having been added later. The course at Newmarket, for example, can accommodate a race of 2.25 miles (3,600 metres) with a gentle change of direction of less than 90 degrees, but spectators cannot see all the race. Newer tracks are elliptical mile-long tracks.
The eligibility of racers is checked the day before they are raced. Before the race, jockeys weigh out and report to the paddock for instructions by trainers and mount up, the identity of the horses having been checked. Horses and riders proceed to the track in a parade to the post for the stewards' inspection and a brief warm-up gallop. Horses are almost universally started from electrically operated starting gates, the horses being walked or led into their stalls prior to the start of the race. The starter actuates the upward swing of the barrier from the stalls when all are in place. During the race, stewards and patrol judges are alert for racing violations, supplemented by a motion-picture patrol. The finish is photographed by a special camera, and when the race is close the picture is awaited before winners are announced. The race's result does not become official until the jockeys have weighed in and the riders of horses that finished in the money are certified to have carried the proper weight. At weighing in, a jockey, owner, or trainer may claim foul against a horse that interfered with his mount. The judgment of the stewards may result in a horse being lowered in order of finish from first to last. The stewards declare the race official, and then payoffs are flashed on the totalizator. Post-race urine tests are made of winning horses and a sample of the field, and if results show the presence of forbidden substances, the results may be changed on payment of purses but not on bets.

The Arc Horse Racing

Most time records are clustered in North America, where speed has long been a desideratum. Races in the United States are timed to 1/5 of a second, as opposed to 1/100 of a second elsewhere.
The earliest American racecourses were typically straight quarter-mile sprints. For these short distances, American jockeys developed a style of riding involving a short stirrup and a crouching posture—this “American seat” eventually became standard worldwide for all distances. As longer, elliptical racetracks were built in New York and throughout the South, a greater onus was placed on jockeys to pace their horses. Because Thoroughbred horses are capable of running only about a quarter of a mile at top speed, determining what pace to set and when to unleash this burst of speed is crucial to winning. The African American jockey Isaac Murphy (Murphy, Isaac Burns) was famous in the 1880s and '90s for his “grandstand finishes.”
The training of racehorses, simply expressed, is maintaining a horse in the best condition to run. Exercise and feeding programs and knowledge of the individual horse are factors involved. A good trainer selects a jockey who suits the horse and, perhaps more important, enters the horse in suitable races. A trainer of a horse for a classic race not only must develop the horse into peak condition but must time the development so that the horse reaches its peak on a certain day, which is the most difficult art of all.
In America, interest in horse racing exploded after the Civil War. By 1890 there were 314 racetracks operating in nearly every state. Incensed, antigambling coalitions pushed through legislation in most parts of the country, and by 1908 only 25 tracks remained in operation. Finally, even New York racetracks were shut down in 1911 when state legislation outlawed quoting of odds, soliciting bets, and recording bets in a fixed place. In response, many owners, trainers, and jockeys shifted their operations to Europe. When New York racetracks reopened in 1913, most of the earlier African American jockeys never returned. During the late 1920s and '30s, racetracks became an important source of tax revenue.
By the second half of the 20th century, horse racing had become big business. Fields regularly number a dozen or more. Once race meetings lasted a day or two, later a week or two. Now, particularly where climate allows, races are scheduled for half the days of a year or more. More racing dates require more horses, and horses are raced more intensively.
Purses grew, particularly after World War II. A new American race, the Arlington Million, in reference to the size of the purse, was first run in 1981. All of the horses racing on the flat who earned more than $1,000,000 in purses ran after World War II. By the end of the century, career earnings of horses like Cigar and Skip Away were approaching $10 million. In 1999 total purses surpassed $1 billion in North America.

Horse Racing The Arc De Triomphe

Where there is gambling there is cheating, and the history of racing repeats itself with recurrent race fixing and running of ringers. A new threat to the sport arose in the 1960s with the widespread use of anti-inflammatory and coagulant drugs on horses. The winner of the Kentucky Derby in 1968 was disqualified when a post-race urine test showed a forbidden drug. Various racing bodies limited or forbade the use of such drugs; others did not. Over-racing, particularly in the United States, encouraged their use.

Horse Racing Arcade Machine

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