The Timeless Sport of Horse Racing

 

 

Many people love to watch horse racing, and it is, of course, one of the ancient animal sporting events that still exists with the same enthusiasm. Whether you just love to watch horse races out of interest or being passionate about going place to watch racing, it is essential to understand the racing structure. Here, let’s explore the basic structure of this sport.

When you are down to it, there are four major categories of races to explore as:
  1. Maiden Races
  2. Claiming Races
  3. Allowance races
  4. Stakes races.

There are various other subsidiaries of these four classes too, but to serve the purpose of this article to provide some beginner information about horse racing patterns, let’s focus on these primary categories.

  • Maiden horse races

Maiden races are the favorite choice of many. It features a field of maiden horses which have never won a race previously. One among these is obviously going to taste its first victory in life, and then the maiden tag of that horse is broken. However, the horses never won need not be limited to only maiden races, but they can contest in other horse races too.

  • Claiming horse races

These races are also called the shopping races as all horses in the race may up for sale too. Anyone can claim the horse before the race.

  • Allowance races

If you have followed TVG Horse Racing, you should know that the prize money (usually called the purses in racing terminology) is higher than the other types of racing discussed before. The horses participating in it will be those that meet certain conditions of non-winning. There are specific codes to understand this. For example, NW3X is the code for those horses which haven’t won 3 races other than one maiden, starter, or claim.

  • Stakes horse races

Most of the racing fans are after this type of racing. The most popular races in this category are Belmont Stakes, Kentucky Derby, and Breeders’ Cup. All the top horses used to run in these races. The stakes are also high, in which the graded stakes races are the top options. Races are usually ranked as G1, G2, and G3, and G1 is the top grade. Stakes races do have feature horses participating from across the country and many times from other parts of the world too.

Apart from the types of the races, the horses are also categorized into various forms and knowing it will further enhance your knowledge and insight about races and help better understand the racing scenario, which we will discuss in the forthcoming articles.

Horse racing tourism is one of the most upcoming specialties in travel and tourism, which is explored by many. However, many people just want to watch races by being ignorant about the technical aspects of it and without knowledge about the rule of the games. However, it will be a fascinating affair if you know the rules of the races well and plan your trip accordingly if you want to explore the best races across the country or abroad.

 

Author Bio: Silvia Watson is a freelance content writer. She has written many good and informative articles on different categories such as technology, health, fashion, education, career, travel etc. She is a featured author at various authoritative blogs in the health and fitness industry and currently associated as a blogger with https://www.tvg.com/