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The Paddock

Guide

Racing has a vocabulary of its own, and nobody hands you the key. This page explains what’s on the site — how to read a card, what the race types mean, and what to look for from the paddock to the wire. No betting knowledge assumed.

Reading a card

Everything on Today is built from cards like this one. The numbers point to what each part means.

KeenelandFeature day

Lexington, KY · Sat, Sep 26 local · 2 stakes · Left-handed

Dirt: Fast · Clear, 68°F

Watch on

  • Keeneland.com live streamTrack stream · Free
  • FanDuel TV+Stream · Free with account
  1. 1
    10:00 AM1:00 PM EDTRun
    Allowance Optional Claiming $62,500

    6.5f · Dirt · $95,500 · 6 runners · 3yo+

    Entries
  2. 2
    10:32 AM1:32 PM EDTin 12 min
    Maiden Claiming $40,000

    5.5f · Turf · $40,500 · 6 runners · 3yo+

    Entries
  3. 8
    1:44 PM4:44 PM EDT
    G1First Lady Stakes

    1 mi · Turf · $600,000 · 7 runners · 3yo+ · F&M

    Entries
  1. Track and day — one card is one track on one racing day. “Feature day” means there’s a Grade 1 or a cluster of stakes on it. “Left-handed” is which way the course turns — counter-clockwise here, as everywhere in North America; many courses elsewhere run the other way (see Watching a race).
  2. Conditions — the surface and how it’s riding (Fast, Good, Sloppy on dirt; Firm, Good, Soft on turf), plus the weather at the track.
  3. Watch on — where the races are showing for the region you picked in the header. “Free with account” means a sign-up but no money down.
  4. Race number — races run in order through the afternoon; the number is what the announcer and the stream use.
  5. Post time — in your local time (here, a viewer in California), with the track’s own clock underneath when it differs. A struck-through time has already run; green shows the countdown to the next.
  6. Race name — for everyday races this is the type — Maiden, Claiming $25,000, Allowance. The glossary explains each. “Entries” (or the name itself) opens the full field.
  7. The essentials — distance · surface · purse · runners · who’s eligible (3yo+ is three-year-olds and up; F&M is fillies and mares). At tracks with a straight sprint course, “Straight” appears after the distance.
  8. Stakes — the brass rule and badge mark stakes races; G1 is the highest grade. These are the ones worth planning your day around.

Reading an entry

Open a race and you get the field. Here’s one runner taken apart, then the table as it appears.

Post1
No.1
Horse
Cider Pioneer8m · Form 6-3-P-0-P
JockeyB. Keating
TrainerW. Rosales
Wt125
M/L4-1
  1. Post position — the stall the horse starts from, counted from the inside rail. The colour follows the North American saddle-cloth convention: 1 red, 2 white, 3 blue, 4 yellow, 5 green…
  2. Program number — the number on the saddle cloth. In North America it matches the post; in Britain and Ireland the cloth number and the draw are different, so we show both.
  3. Horse — name, where it was bred, age and sex (4g = four-year-old gelding), and recent form with the latest run on the right: 3-1-2 is third, then first, then second. The name opens the horse’s record.
  4. Jockey — the rider. Big-name riders choose their mounts, so a top jockey on a horse says something. The name opens the rider’s record.
  5. Trainer — who prepares the horse.
  6. Weight — rider plus tack, in pounds. In handicaps the best horse carries the most.
  7. Morning line — the track’s forecast odds: 5-1 pays $5 for each $1. Lower means more fancied. It’s a guide, not a price.

The same race as it appears on the site

Entries. Click a column to sort.
11Cider Pioneer8m · Form 6-3-P-0-PT: W. RosalesB. Keating4-1
22Rebel Duke5m · Form 3-0-3-3-5T: P. LombardiW. Rosales15-1
33Saddle Marquee3f · Form 3-1-4-3-3T: R. GallagherD. Whitfield12-1
44Copper Envoy5m · Form 2-5-4-3-PT: S. HartleyL. Rosales5-2
55Marble Lantern7m · Form P-2-2-5-2T: D. NavarroJ. Sutton6-1

Kinds of race

Most races are ordinary — that’s the point. The system exists to make fields even, so every horse has a level where it can win. Stakes are the exception: the best horses, the biggest purses, the ones worth planning around.

North America

Claiming prices and allowance conditions sort the everyday races; stakes sit on top.

  1. Maiden claiming
  2. Maiden special weight
  3. Claiming
  4. Allowance / optional claiming
  5. Stakes (ungraded)
  6. Grade 3
  7. Grade 2
  8. Grade 1

Britain & Ireland

Handicaps are banded by official rating into Classes 7 (lowest) to 2. Class 1 is the pattern.

  1. Class 7–6 handicaps
  2. Class 5–4 handicaps & maidens
  3. Class 3–2 handicaps
  4. Listed
  5. Group 3
  6. Group 2
  7. Group 1

Japan (JRA)

Horses climb by wins: each victory moves them up a class until they reach Open company.

  1. Newcomer / Maiden
  2. 1 Win class
  3. 2 Win class
  4. 3 Win class
  5. Open (OP)
  6. G3
  7. G2
  8. G1

Hong Kong

Nearly everything is a handicap, banded by rating from Class 5 up to Class 1.

  1. Class 5
  2. Class 4
  3. Class 3
  4. Class 2
  5. Class 1
  6. Group 3
  7. Group 2
  8. Group 1

Australia

Benchmark handicaps (BM64, BM78…) are banded by rating; carnivals bring the Group races.

  1. Maiden
  2. Class 1–3
  3. Benchmark 58–78
  4. Benchmark 84–100 / Open
  5. Listed
  6. Group 3
  7. Group 2
  8. Group 1

Claiming races put every runner up for sale at a fixed price until the gate opens, which stops anyone slipping a champion in against cheap horses. Handicaps do the same job with weight: the better the horse, the more it carries. Allowance and conditions races use rules — how many wins, what age — instead.

Stakes are where owners pay to enter and the purse is serious. The best of them are graded by an international panel: Grade 1 (North America, Japan) or Group 1 (everywhere else) is the summit; 2 and 3 sit below; Listed is one rung further down. On this site those get the brass rule and the badge.

Distance & going

How far, on what, and how it’s riding.

  1. 5f5f · 1006mFlat out from the gate. Britain’s minimum trip.
  2. 6f6f · 1207mThe standard North American sprint; about 1:09 on fast dirt.
  3. 7f7f · 1408mOne turn, but stamina starts to show.
  4. 1 mi1m · 1609mThe mile. Two turns on most US tracks; one in Europe.
  5. 1 1/8 mi1m 1f · 1811mClassic US route distance — most Grade 1 dirt races.
  6. 1 1/4 mi1m 2f · 2012mThe Kentucky Derby, the Arc, the Japan Cup (2000–2400m).
  7. 1 1/2 mi1m 4f · 2414mThe Derby at Epsom, the Belmont Stakes.
  8. 2 mi2m · 3219mCup races and the minimum for jump racing.
A furlong is an eighth of a mile — 220 yards, about 200 metres. The site shows distances the way each country writes them: furlongs and miles in North America, Britain and Ireland; metres in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and France. Some courses run their sprints on a straight course with no turns (York’s 6f, Newmarket’s Rowley Mile, Flemington’s Straight Six); those races are marked “Straight”.

Going

US dirt
FastGoodMuddySloppyHeavy
US turf
FirmGoodYieldingSoftHeavy
GB / IE turf
FirmGood to FirmGoodGood to SoftSoftHeavy
Australia
Firm 1–2Good 3–4Soft 5–7Heavy 8–10
Japan
FirmGoodYieldingSoft
All-weather
FastStandardSlow

Fastest on the left. Wet, slow ground tires horses and favours those bred for stamina — and it can turn form on its head.

Watching a race

A race is about two minutes long and most of it makes sense once you know where to look. Start twenty minutes before post.

Before: the paddock

The horses are saddled and walked in a ring behind the stands; the stream usually shows it. You want a horse that looks alert and walks with purpose — “on its toes”. Heavy sweating between the hind legs (“washed out”) or a horse fighting its handler is a bad sign. Then “riders up”: the jockeys mount, and the field walks out for the post parade and a short warm-up.

What you’ll hear

  • “They’re in the gate” — loading, usually a minute or two.
  • “And they’re off” — the break. Look for who got away cleanly.
  • “23 and 2… 46 and 4” — the fractions: split times for each quarter mile. Fast early splits tire the leaders.
  • “Being asked” — the jockey is riding for a run. “Under a hand ride” means not yet.
  • “Photo”, “inquiry”, “official” — too close to call; the stewards are looking; it’s final.
A one-mile dirt oval seen from above, with the phases of a race, the stands, and the paddock markedHorses leave the gate on the home straight, run past the stands, around the clubhouse turn, along the backstretch, around the far turn, and down the stretch to the wire. Sprint races start from a chute off the backstretch. Behind the stands, the paddock holds a walking ring and saddling stalls; a horse path leads from it through the stands onto the track.Winner's circle¼⅛1⁄16Sprint chuteHorse pathClubhouseGrandstandWalking ringSaddling stallsPaddockGate & breakFirstturnBackstretchFarturnThe stretchWire

This oval runs counter-clockwise — “left-handed” — as every track in North America does. Elsewhere it depends on the course: Ascot, Sha Tin, Randwick and Nakayama run clockwise (“right-handed”); Flemington, Tokyo and Meydan run left; Newmarket’s Rowley Mile is nearly straight. Each track’s direction is listed on its card, and it matters — a horse that hangs left is better suited to one than the other. Real courses are rarely this tidy: the course pages draw each one to scale from map data — Epsom’s horseshoe, Chester’s tight circle, Ascot’s triangle.

Before the race the horses are saddled in the stalls, walked round the rings while the crowd looks them over, then led up the horse path through the stands onto the track for the post parade. The striped poles on the outer rail count down the distance left: red for a quarter-mile, green for an eighth, black for a sixteenth. Afterwards the winner comes back to the winner’s circle by the wire.

The race, in order

  • Gate & break — the first two seconds decide a lot. Watch for a horse that stumbles or gets squeezed — it has lost lengths it may not get back. Sprints start from the chute off the backstretch instead, so they run one turn.
  • First turn — usually called the clubhouse turn in North America, since the clubhouse traditionally sits at that end. Riders sort out position; the horse on the inside saves ground, anyone three or four wide is running farther than everyone else.
  • Backstretch — the race settles. Listen for the fractions — “46 flat” for the half-mile is quick, “48 and change” is a crawl that favours the leaders.
  • Far turn — the move. Jockeys start asking at the quarter pole; closers begin to pick off the tiring leaders. This is where you can see who still has something.
  • The stretch — the drive to the line, past the eighth and sixteenth poles. Look for a horse changing leads (switching which front leg lands first) — that’s a fresh gear. Drifting wide means it’s tiring.
  • Wire — the finish. Close ones go to the photo; then the stewards check for interference and the result goes official. Don’t tear anything up until it does.

The gate and post positions

The starting gate with eight stalls; stall one is next to the inside railInside rail1red2white3blue4yellow5green6black7orange8pinkRuns toward the first turn ↑
Stalls count outward from the rail. On a tight track with an early turn, low numbers save ground and high numbers have to work across; on a long straight it matters much less. Australia calls this the barrier, Britain the draw. The saddle-cloth colours are the North American convention, which is what the post chips on this site use.

Glossary

The words on the site, and their regional synonyms.

The card

Card
All the races at one track on one day. A “full card” is the whole day; a “feature day” is one with a major race on it.Also: Meeting (GB/IE/AU), race day
Field
The horses running in a race. “10 runners” means ten will start; scratched horses don’t count.
Post time
The scheduled start. Races almost always go off a minute or two late, rarely early.Also: Off time (GB/IE), jump time (AU)
Purse
Total prize money for the race, split between the top finishers (the winner usually takes about 55–60%). Bigger purses attract better horses.Also: Prize money, stakes
Race number
Races run in order through the day. “R8” is the eighth. British and Irish cards don’t number races officially — they go by off time — so we number them in order.
Scratched
Withdrawn before the race, by the trainer, a vet, or the stewards. Bets on a scratched horse are refunded.Also: Non-runner (GB/IE), late scratching (AU)
Going
How the track surface is riding. Turf runs from Firm through Good to Soft and Heavy; US dirt is Fast, Good, Muddy, or Sloppy. Australia adds numbers (Good 4, Soft 6, Heavy 9).Also: Track condition

Kinds of race

Maiden
For horses that have never won. Where careers start. “Maiden special weight” is the top tier of these in the US; “maiden claiming” is the bottom.
Claiming
Every horse is for sale at the stated price (“Claiming $25,000”) until the race starts. It keeps fields even: nobody enters a $100,000 horse where anyone can buy it for $25,000. Most US racing is claiming racing.Also: Selling race, claimer (GB)
Allowance
A step up from claiming: horses aren’t for sale, and the conditions (“non-winners of two”) keep the field level. “Optional claiming” means some runners may be entered for a tag and some not.
Handicap
The official handicapper assigns each horse a weight based on its rating, so in theory they all finish together. Most British, Irish, Australian and Hong Kong racing is handicap racing.
Conditions race
Weights set by rules (age, sex, past wins) rather than by a handicapper. Most stakes races are conditions races.
Stakes
The top tier: owners pay to enter (the “stake”), purses are largest, and the best horses turn up. Called “black type” because they print in bold in sales catalogues.Also: Pattern race, feature race
Graded / Group
The best stakes races are ranked 1, 2, 3 by an international committee. “Grade 1” in North America and Japan (“G1”), “Group 1” in Europe, Australia and Hong Kong. Grade 1 is the elite — the Kentucky Derby, the Arc, the Japan Cup.
Listed
One rung below Group 3. Still black type, still a stakes race, just not graded.
Novice
For horses early in their careers — in British flat racing, those with few wins; over jumps, those in their first season at that discipline.
Nursery
A British handicap restricted to two-year-olds.
Hurdle / Chase
Jump racing. Hurdles are low, flexible obstacles; chases (steeplechases) are taller, stiffer fences. Jump races are longer — two miles and up — and run over the winter in Britain, Ireland and France.
Bumper
A National Hunt flat race: no jumps, for young horses being introduced to jump racing.

Reading an entry

Program number
The number on the saddle cloth and in the program. In North America it’s also the post position. “1A” means the horse is coupled with #1 — they run as one betting interest.Also: Cloth number, saddlecloth
Post position
Which stall the horse leaves from, counted from the inside rail. Inside posts save ground on turns; outside posts get a cleaner run but travel farther.Also: Draw, stall, gate, barrier (AU)
Silks
The coloured jacket the jockey wears — the owner’s registered colours. In North America saddle cloths are also colour-coded by post position (1 red, 2 white, 3 blue…), which is what our post chips echo.
Jockey
The rider. Listed with the entry; a change of jockey close to the race is worth noticing.Also: Rider
Trainer
Runs the horse’s stable and prepares it. Some trainers specialise — first-time starters, turf, long distances.
Weight
What the horse carries, rider plus tack, in pounds (or kilograms in Australia and Japan). In handicaps the better the horse, the more weight. Apprentice jockeys get an allowance that reduces it.
Morning line
A track handicapper’s forecast of the odds, printed before betting opens. 5-1 means you’d win $5 for every $1 bet. It’s an estimate, not a price you can take.Also: M/L, forecast price
Form
Recent finishing positions, most recent on the right: 3-1-2 means third, then first, then second. 0 is unplaced; P is pulled up; F fell.
Official rating
The handicapper’s number for how good a horse is — higher is better. British flat handicaps run from the 40s to 110+; Hong Kong from about 20 to 130.Also: OR, mark, benchmark (AU)
Age and sex
“4g” is a four-year-old gelding. c = colt (young male), f = filly (young female), g = gelding, h = horse (older entire male), m = mare (older female). Ages tick over on 1 January in the northern hemisphere, 1 August in the southern.
Headgear
Kit worn to focus a horse: blinkers (b) cut side vision, cheekpieces (p) are a milder version, a hood (h) muffles noise, a visor (v) is blinkers with a slit, a tongue-tie (t) stops the tongue getting over the bit. First-time headgear is worth noticing.
Country suffix
(IRE), (GB), (JPN) after a name means where the horse was bred, not where it lives.

Distances and surfaces

Furlong
An eighth of a mile, 220 yards, about 201 metres. North America and Britain measure in furlongs and miles; most of the world uses metres. 6f is a sprint; 1 1/4 miles (10f, 2000m) is a classic distance; 2 miles is a marathon.
Sprint / route
Sprints are up to about 7 furlongs and mostly one turn; routes are a mile and up with two turns. Horses tend to be one or the other.Also: Stayer (long-distance horse)
Dirt
The traditional North American surface. Speed-favouring; the horse on the lead often stays there. Kicks back into the faces of horses behind.
Turf
Grass. Standard everywhere outside North America. Slower, and closers (horses that finish fast from behind) do better. “Firm” turf is fast; “soft” and “heavy” are testing.
All-weather
Synthetic surfaces (Tapeta, Polytrack) that race through winter. Britain’s Wolverhampton, Kempton and Lingfield; Woodbine and Gulfstream also have one.Also: AW, synthetic

Watching

Paddock
Where horses are saddled and walked before the race. Twenty minutes before post, the horses come out; the jockeys join them at “riders up”. A calm, alert horse on its toes is what you want to see.Also: Parade ring (GB/IE), mounting yard (AU)
Post parade
The horses walk past the stands in program order on their way to the gate, then warm up.
Gate
The starting stalls. “Loading” is the last minute; “they’re off” is the start. A horse that breaks slowly has lost lengths it may not get back.Also: Stalls, barriers (AU)
Break
The first few strides out of the gate. Sprinters need a fast one.
Pace
How fast the early part is run. Announcers call fractions — “23 and 2, 46 flat” means the first quarter-mile in 23.2 seconds and the half in 46.0. Fast early pace sets up closers; slow pace favours the leaders.
Front-runner / stalker / closer
Running styles. Front-runners go to the lead; stalkers sit just behind; closers save ground at the back and come late. Knowing which is which makes the middle of a race legible.
Backstretch
The far straight, opposite the stands. Positions settle here.Also: Back straight
Straight course
A course with no turns at all, used for sprints at some tracks — York and Haydock up to 6f, Ascot, Doncaster and Newbury for a mile, Newmarket’s Rowley Mile for even further, Flemington’s “Straight Six”. The draw matters differently: nobody saves ground, but the ground can be faster on one side. Marked “Straight” on the race.Also: Straight track, the straight
Left-handed / right-handed
Which way the course turns. Left-handed is counter-clockwise — every North American track, plus Flemington, Tokyo and Meydan. Right-handed is clockwise — Ascot, Sha Tin, Randwick, Nakayama, Longchamp. Some horses have a marked preference. Shown on each track’s card.Also: Anticlockwise / clockwise
Far turn
The last bend before the finish. Jockeys start asking for a run here; horses that are “wide” are losing ground, ones “on the rail” are saving it.
Stretch
The final straight to the wire. The stretch run is the race.Also: Home straight, the straight
Wire
The finish line. “Nose”, “head”, “neck”, “length” describe the margins; a length is about eight feet.Also: Line, post
Photo finish
Too close to call by eye; the judges read a photo. Takes a minute or two.
Inquiry / objection
The stewards review the race for interference (an inquiry) or a jockey lodges a complaint (an objection). A horse can be disqualified and placed behind the one it bothered. Nothing is final until the result is “official”.Also: Stewards' enquiry (GB/IE), protest (AU)
Weighed in
After the race the jockeys are weighed to confirm they carried the right weight; then the result stands. In Britain you’ll hear “weighed in, weighed in”.

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