Horseracing Trivia
20 Things You Didn’t Know About
Horseracing
1. Chariot races run in ancient Rome are the earliest known example of organised horse racing, however, it is likely that horses were raced as long ago as 4,500 BC in central Asia.
2. A punter betting on every race in a typical nine race meeting will have to review approximately 24,000 pieces of information if he wishes to review the record of each participating runner.
3.The lowest weight recorded for a jockey is 49 pounds (22kg).
4.The average racehorse weighs around 1,000 pounds.
5.Over $100 billion is bet on horses every year.
6.Successful stallions can earn their owners more money in stud than on the racecourse.
7.Thoroughbred horses are a specific horse breed, which is bred for speed, agility and determination. Thoroughbreds trace their ancestry back to Arabian horses bred with horses from England.
8.Thoroughbred horses are almost double the size of the Arabian racehorses raced over a thousand years ago.
9.A quarter-bred horse is an American breed specifically bred for quarter mile races. These horses are shorter and more muscular than thoroughbred horses.
10.A standard bred horse is a horse breed used specifically for harness racing, as they are adept at racing at a trot rather than at a gallop.
11. The term ‘big hearted’ has an anatomical basis in horseracing, where horses with large hearts have a distinct edge on horses with regular sized hearts.
12. The relatively high casualty rate for horses in American horseracing is due almost entirely to the use of legal and illegal performance enhancing drugs.
13.Never Mind II holds the slowest recorded winning time for a race, which he achieved at a race won in 1945, when he finished a 2-mile race in 11 minutes and 28 seconds. Never Mind II refused at a fence, and was abandoned by his jockey, only for the jockey to find out that all the other runners in the race had been disqualified or had fallen. The jockey returned to Never Mind II and finished the race at leisure.
14.The jockey Alfred Johnson once lost 14 lbs in one day to reach the required weight for a race.
15.One of the United States’ most famous jockeys, Eddie Arcaro, rode 250 losers before winning his first race. Arcaro went on to win another 4,778 races during his career, including each of the races making up the American Triple Crown.
16.The Grand National Steeplechase, the world’s biggest jump race, was won by a three year old plough horse in 1908.
17.The jockey Levi Barlingume raced competitively until the age of 80. He participated in his last race in 1932, during which he fell and broke a leg.
18.Tango Duke set the record for thoroughbred longevity in 1978, when he died at the age of 42.
19. The 1921 Epsom Derby winner, Humorist, had only one lung.
20. No horse over the age of 18 has won a race in any format in the recorded history of horseracing. The last 18-year old to win a race was steeplechaser Sonny Somers in 1980.
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