A horse race is a spectacle of beauty and skill. As the horses thunder around a course, the audience stands up and cheers with enthusiasm as their favorite runs. A jockey atop each horse helps them to go faster by using their whip. A race is won by whichever horse crosses the finish line first.
Some races are handicapped. The racing secretary assigns weights to entrants that are intended to level the playing field. This means the winner is likely to win a greater percentage of the money than another horse. Generally, the weights are based on a horse’s past performance, but can also be adjusted for age, sex, and distance.
In a horse race, a horse’s owner or breeder will bet on it to win. They can place a bet on a particular horse by calling the bookmakers, or they can make a bet in advance of the race day. This type of bet is often called an antepost bet because it can be placed before the final declaration stage of the race. This bet is not refundable in the event of a non-runner.
The escalation of purses, breeding fees, and sale prices has led to fewer races being run with horses over the age of four. This has forced many racehorses to spend their entire careers on the track, and in some cases, a lifetime in a for-profit business that leads to untimely death.
As a result, racing has become an industry of three types of people: The crooks who illegally drug and otherwise mistreat their horses and the dupes who labor under the false belief that the sport is broadly fair and honest. There is a small group in the middle who are neither crooks nor dupes, but honorable souls who know that the industry is crooked and don’t do enough to fix it.
In the days leading up to a horse race, Siena’s central square is transformed beyond recognition. A gritty mixture of clay and earth is packed onto the golden cobbles, creating a compact and stable surface for the horses to run on. Bleachers are erected for the thousands of spectators, and barriers are erected to separate the crowd from the horses. A horse’s start is supervised by stewards who are on hand to catch any violations or dangerous behavior by the horses or their handlers.
When the stewards are convinced that a horse has run to the best of its ability, they will announce the winning horse. In the case of a dead heat, a photograph of the finish is studied by stewards to see which horse crossed the line first. This process can take up to an hour and is only as accurate as the naked eye.
A horse race is a fascinating spectacle, but it’s important to remember that the animals involved are suffering for their participation. While donations by racing fans are essential for the survival of older running horses, those same dollars do not cancel out the ongoing exploitation of younger horses who will one day enter the same race circuit and are just as likely to die young. We must help them. Let’s not allow Eight Belles, Medina Spirit, Keepthename, Creative Plan, Laoban and thousands of others to be forgotten.
