A horse race is a sport that pits horses against one another in a contest of speed or stamina. The horse that crosses the finish line first is declared the winner. This contest of speed or endurance is one of the oldest sports in history and has evolved into a spectacle that involves large fields of runners, sophisticated electronic monitoring equipment and enormous sums of money, but its basic concept remains unchanged.
Horse races can be classified as either flat or jump races. Flat races are run over distances ranging from 440 yards (400 m) to over two miles (3.2 km). Races of short duration, known as sprints, are seen as tests of pure speed, while longer races, called routes in the United States and “staying races” in Europe, are regarded as tests of endurance. Despite the importance of speed, the ability to accelerate rapidly (“a turn of foot”) is not always essential to victory in a sprint or a route, and therefore the judgment and skill of the rider are more important in deciding the outcome.
Jump races involve obstacles such as fences, hurdles and ditches that must be jumped over by a horse as it runs. Horses must be capable of negotiating these obstacles and covering long distances, and a good jumping technique requires a great deal of training and practice. These skills are taught to a horse by its trainer and, in many countries, are supervised by professional stewards. The riders of a horse are called jockeys and, in England, amateur jockeys are called whippers-in. In the past, these riders were often highly regarded as skilled and able to coax advantages from their mounts, but, as dash racing became common in the late 1850s, fewer jockeys were named and their skills were not always recognized or appreciated.
Thoroughbreds are a type of breed of horse that is bred for racing. They are generally larger and faster than other breeds of horses, and they are suited to both flat and jump racing. They possess more slow-twitch muscle fibers than other breeds of horses, which give them the ability to generate speed and endurance over a long period of time.
In a horse race, an Across the Board bet is a wager on a runner to Win, Place and Show. A player collects the Win price if the runner wins, the Place price if the runner comes in second and the Show price if the runner comes in third. These bets are often combined into a Pick Six or similar pool and can be very rewarding if correctly picked. Occasionally pools are not paid out completely, and these are known as dead heats. The rules for deciding a winner in these cases vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. This is especially likely in pools with multiple legs.
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