Horse racing is a sport that has evolved from a primitive contest of speed or stamina between two horses into a modern spectacle with vast fields of runners, sophisticated electronic monitoring equipment, and enormous sums of money. But the essential feature of the sport has undergone virtually no change over the centuries: The horse that crosses the finish line first is declared the winner.
The sport is governed by a set of rules that determines how races are run, and while there may be slight differences between different national rulebooks, the majority of races are based on the same fundamentals. The main types of horse race include handicap races, which adjust the weights that horses must carry in order to render them all equal (the more immature a horse, the less weight it must bear), and stakes races, which allocate weights on the basis of age, distance, sex, and other factors.
In addition to the different types of horse race, there are also certain conditions that could cause a race to be disqualified. For instance, if a horse breaks away from the starting gate before the race begins, it is considered to have been impeded and will be disqualified. Similarly, if a jockey falls off his or her mount during the course of a race, the horse is disqualified and will be removed from the running order.
While the media often glamourizes horse races as a glamorous and aristocratic pastime, behind the romanticized facade of elegant hats and mint juleps is a world of serious injuries, drug abuse, and gruesome breakdowns. The horses that are used in racing are forced to sprint-often under the threat of whips and even illegal electric shock devices-at speeds that frequently cause them to suffer from serious injuries, including hemorrhage from the lungs. Pushed beyond their limits, many horses become so ill that they are euthanized.
The number of horse deaths on the track has led to numerous safety reforms. Protocol now requires a necropsy after every death and a thorough review of contributing factors, vet records, and interviews with stakeholders to identify how the animal died and what could have been done to prevent it. Many states, including California and New York, have public databases of equine injuries and deaths.
The sport is also plagued by scandals involving doping and race-day medication. Horses are routinely given cocktails of legal and illegal drugs designed to mask pain, hide injuries, and artificially enhance performance. Despite these scandals, the racing industry remains dominated by powerful interests, including breeding farms and horse racing betting pools. The sport’s popularity has grown dramatically as state governments, desperate for revenue, have turned to racing as a honey pot of lucrative tax revenues. Nevertheless, there are growing concerns among the public that the horse racing industry is too heavily dependent on gambling and that it should be regulated more closely by government agencies. This is a key issue in the debate over whether to legalize betting on horse races.