Racing glossary

The words on the site and their regional synonyms, 78 of them, in plain language. For how a card fits together, start with the guide.

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Scratched: Withdrawn before the race, by the trainer, a vet, or the stewards.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
GoingStick: A probe pushed into the turf to measure how firm it is, reported alongside the going in Britain and Ireland. Roughly: under 5 is soft, 6 to 8 is good, 9 and above is firm.
Stewards: The officials who police a race day. They hold inquiries, demote horses that interfered with others, fine or suspend jockeys, and can withdraw a horse before the start. A result is only final once they have declared it official.
Handicapper: The racing authority's official who rates every horse after each run and sets the weights for handicap races. Not the same as the track handicapper who writes the morning line in North America.

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”, meaning horses that have won fewer than two races) keep the field level. “Optional claiming” means some runners may be entered to be claimed (a “tag” is the claiming price) and some not.
Starter allowance: A US race open only to horses that have recently run for a claiming price at or below a stated amount. A step up for cheaper horses without the risk of being bought.Also: Starter
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 top: the Kentucky Derby, the Arc, the Japan Cup.
Listed: One rung below Group 3. Still black type, still a stakes race, just not graded.
Pattern: Europe’s name for the graded system as a whole: the Group 1, 2 and 3 races and the Listed races beneath them. “A pattern race” is any of these; “black type” means the same thing.Also: Black type
Classic: One of the historic races for three-year-olds that a season is built around. Britain has five: the 2000 Guineas, 1000 Guineas, Derby, Oaks and St Leger. The US has the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont. Most racing countries have their own set on the same model.
Triple Crown: Winning all three of a country’s Classics for three-year-olds in one season: the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont in the US; the 2000 Guineas, Derby and St Leger in Britain. Rare enough to be news for decades; a fillies’ Triple Crown exists too.
Carnival: Australia’s word for a festival of racing: several big meetings at one venue over a few weeks, such as the Melbourne spring carnival or Sydney’s autumn carnival. Britain and Ireland say festival (Cheltenham, Royal Ascot, Punchestown).Also: Festival (GB/IE)
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, in 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 copy.
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.
Apprentice: A young jockey still learning the trade. To make up for inexperience they can “claim” weight off the horse’s allotted load (3, 5 or 7 lb in Britain; 5, 7 or 10 lb in North America), which is why a trainer sometimes books one on a well-handicapped horse.Also: Claiming jockey, bug rider (US)
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 made before betting opens, so the real odds will differ.Also: M/L, forecast price
Form: Recent finishing positions, most recent on the right: 3-1-2 means third, then first, then second. Digits are the placing; 0 means outside the first nine; a letter means the horse didn’t finish. Every symbol is explained under Form figures below.
Starting price (SP): The odds a horse was at the moment the race started, which is how most bets are settled. Shown in records as 5/1, 11/4 and so on; the shorter the price, the more the public fancied it.Also: SP
Beaten lengths: How far behind the winner a horse finished, in lengths (a length is about eight feet). Margins smaller than a length are a nose, a short head, a head and a neck, in that order.Also: Btn
Strike rate: Wins as a percentage of runs. Around 20% is very good for a jockey or trainer over a season; a horse’s is read against how many runs it has had.Also: Win %
A/E: Actual wins divided by the wins the betting market expected from the odds. Above 1.00 means the jockey, trainer or horse does better than the prices suggest; below, worse. Used on the record pages here.
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 (a castrated male, calmer and never going to stud), h = horse (an older male that hasn’t been gelded, an “entire”), 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.

Form figures

1 to 9, and 0: Each character is one race, most recent on the right. A digit is the finishing position; 0 means tenth or worse. A dash separates runs in the same season and a slash marks a break between seasons: 21/3-1 is two runs, a winter off, then third and first.
P · Pulled up: The jockey stopped the horse during the race and didn’t finish, usually because it was tired, didn’t handle the ground, or felt wrong, and there was nothing to gain by going on. Common over jumps, rare on the flat, and not by itself a bad sign.
F · Fell: Came down at a hurdle or fence. Jump racing only. Horses usually walk away; the form line just says it didn’t complete.
U · Unseated rider: The horse stayed on its feet but the jockey came off, usually after a clumsy jump. The horse finishes the race on its own, which doesn’t count.
B · Brought down: Knocked over by another horse falling in front of it. No fault of its own, so it’s discounted when judging a horse.
R · Refused: Stopped dead at an obstacle and would not jump it. A horse that does this more than once is losing its enthusiasm.
O · Ran out: Swerved around a fence or off the course instead of jumping, taking the jockey with it.
S · Slipped up: Lost its footing and went down without an obstacle involved, usually on a bend in the wet.
C · Carried out: Forced off the course by another horse running out beside it. Also no fault of its own.
D · Disqualified: Crossed the line and was then thrown out by the stewards: for interfering with another runner, carrying the wrong weight, or a banned substance. Sometimes written as the placing followed by D.

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 helps you follow the middle of a race.
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. Most races are decided here.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
Dead heat: Two (or more) horses the photo cannot separate. They share the placing and, if it’s first, are both winners.
Poles: Striped posts on the outside rail counting down the distance to the wire: the quarter pole is a quarter-mile out, the eighth pole a furlong out, the sixteenth pole half a furlong. When a caller says a horse “took over at the eighth pole”, that’s where it happened.Also: Furlong markers (GB/IE)
Hand ride: The jockey pushing with hands and heels only, no whip. It means the horse is going well enough not to need asking. “Being asked”, “under pressure” or “hard ridden” is the opposite.
Wide: Racing away from the rail on a turn and so covering more ground than the horses inside. “Three wide” is three horse-widths out; a horse that “lost ground wide” ran farther than the winner.
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”.