Horse races have captivated people with their beauty, power and elegance for centuries. From ancient chariot races to the flamboyance of modern-day racing events, the sport is steeped in time-honored traditions that continue to draw in crowds of fans and bettors alike. It’s a game where the stakes are high, both for the horses and their owners. But it’s easy to lose sight of the real issues at stake in a race when it becomes a mud-slinging, name calling, attack-ad-filled, horse-race spectacle.
A horse race is a contest of speed and endurance, and in the course of a race a number of things can go wrong for the jockey and the horse. Besides the physical demands of racing, which include constant exertion and the stress of being in close quarters with other horses, there are psychological factors to consider. Horses are animals, and in the wild they understand the value of self-preservation. When they are pushed to the limit, they can become injured or even die, something that is not uncommon in horse racing.
In order to avoid injury or death, many horses are subjected to cocktails of legal and illegal drugs designed to mask injuries and artificially enhance performance. This is especially true for horses that are prone to bleeding from their lungs, a condition known as exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage. The lungs are extremely sensitive and are easily damaged when the muscles in the chest compress during running. To reduce the likelihood of this happening, most horses are given a drug called Lasix or Salix, both of which have performance-enhancing properties.
The most common injuries are fractures, particularly in the legs and feet. Other common ailments include bog spavin (a split of the bone in the back leg), splints and spiral fractures, which are a type of break where the fracture spins around the bone. These injuries can be very painful and often require surgery to fix them.
A horse can also be injured by a kick or fall from another horse. Horses that are not well trained or who run in crowded races can be tossed or knocked over. Injuries can also happen due to poor track conditions.
The earliest recorded accounts of horse races date from 700 to 40 B.C., when chariot and mounted bareback races were held in Greece. Racing later became popular in other parts of the world, including Asia and North Africa.
Handicaps are a system of weights that the race secretary assigns to each horse in order to equalize its chances of winning a race. They are determined by the experience, age and recent racing record of a horse, among other things. The more experienced and successful a horse is, the higher its handicap. The Beyer Speed Figure is a useful tool for handicapping and has been used since 1975 to determine when a horse’s peak racing speed occurs, how quickly it declines past that point and what the average speed is for a race.