Horse Racing

Men and some women too are taking part in Horse Racing, a sporting event where horses with their jockeys compete against other horses, usually on a circular track. The pair to circle the track with the fastest time wins the game. Horse racing is one of those age-old sports activities which the ancient people during their time era have started to play. The Romans and the Greeks both had their chariots race, the nomadic Arabs also had their endurance racing in the vast desert area. Each culture has its own version of the horse race. Back in the 12th century, horse races were held in England’s Newmarket. In the 1600s, this settlement was known as the hub of horse racing and horse breeding in the UK.

Horse racing tracks are of various topography as well. Some tracks have a flat area surface, others have land forms that require a horse to jump, others have grasses, turf, sand or man-made materials. Of course, if horses are supposed to run on various kinds of surfaces, they also need appropriate gears and protective outfits to assure o their safety and that of the jockey. What makes horse racing more interesting is not just watching the magnificence of the horses’ hooves thundering across the track. Instead, it’s the money and the profit that spectators and bookies can gain from the horse race by betting on the game’s result.
The breed of the horse is among the major factors considered for a horse to qualify in a horse race. All over the globe, there are three breeding of horses that are widely used in horse racing. These breeds are:

• Quarter horses
• Standardbreds
• Thoroughbreds

Of the three, the Thoroughbred is by far the most dominantly seen in most horse races. Before a horse can take part and compete in a race, there are certain qualifications that such horse need to pass complete with all the required papers and documents. In some races, organizers even use a few stud books as a reference for identifying if a particular horse is purebred or hybrid.

Race length together with the type of track surface determines the difficulty of the race. There are many types of racing to which horses are subjected to compete. Flat racing, mostly for Thoroughbred horses, are held in an oval shaped course and the race itself is centered on the animal’s stamina and speed. The endurance racing for horses entails allowing the horse to run on quite a long track from some 10 miles to greater distances of hundred miles. The winning pair of horse and jockey is awarded with a trophy and cash price collectively called a purse.