A horse race is a competition in which horses are ridden and forced to run around a track at speeds up to 30 miles per hour. This is often a painful ordeal for the animals, and they often suffer debilitating injuries as a result of it. While the sport of horse racing has a romanticized facade that involves fancy attire and mint juleps, there is a dark reality behind it. Many people do not realize that horse races are cruel to the animals who are abused and killed in them.
To be eligible to participate in a horse race, a horse must have the proper pedigree. This means that its sire (father) and dam (mother) must be purebred individuals of the same breed as the horse it is competing against. It is also necessary for the horse to be trained properly in order to win. This is usually done by having a professional rider on board. These riders are called jockeys. A jockey has a great deal of control over the horse, and may be required to use whips in order to get it to perform well.
The horse racing industry is a multibillion dollar enterprise, and profits from the racehorses themselves as well as from spectators who attend the races. While the majority of people who watch horse races do not gamble on the outcome of each race, there are plenty of other ways to place a wager.
Horses are bred to be athletic and fast, which is why they must train so hard. In order to be able to compete in a horse race, a horse will typically go for long jogs and gallops in the mornings. This is in addition to the daily workouts that the horse is put through by its trainer.
In a race, each horse is assigned a specific amount of weight based on its age, sex, and past performance. This is called handicapping. The goal of handicapping is to predict which horse will finish first. Ideally, the horse with the lowest weight will win the race. However, this is not always the case.
A dead racehorse can have several different problems, including cardiovascular collapse, pulmonary hemorrhage, or a broken leg. Injuries to the neck, spinal column, and feet are common as well. Sometimes the bones of a horse’s neck or spine will break, and in these cases, only skin keeps them attached to their bodies.
When horse racing is covered in the media, there is a tendency to focus on the winners and losers. This is known as horse race coverage, and it has been proven to be harmful to voters, candidates, and the news industry itself. A collection of research on this topic was compiled by journalist Denise-Marie Ordway for the Journalist’s Resource, a project of Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. It can be accessed here. The research highlights multiple studies that show that when journalists cover elections in this way, it damages the ability of Americans to make informed choices at the polls.