Horse racing is a popular sport where horses are raced around a track, either on the flat or over jumps. Spectators place bets on the winner of each race, making it a profitable industry for bookies. The sport can be dangerous for horses, however, and they are often injured or killed. Moreover, horse races can be difficult for spectators to watch, due to the high speeds at which the horses are raced. Despite the risks involved, many people continue to participate in horse racing.
Whether you are looking for the latest horse race results or just wanting to know how to bet on a horse race, this section will help you with all your betting needs. You can bet on the winning horse of each race and also place accumulator bets. You can find all the horse racing results from today’s UK and Irish racecourses, as well as selected French, US, Hong Kong Dubai and other overseas fixtures.
The New York Times article, “PETA Accuses Trainers of Cruelty,” came on like a thunderclap. The video it accompanies provides the public with a glimpse into the treatment of world-class thoroughbreds at two prestigious training facilities—Churchill Downs in Kentucky and Saratoga Race Course in upstate New York. This is a glimpse into the dark underbelly of what is known as top-level racing and gives credence to what animal advocates have long suspected: that the cruelty, incompetence, and deception found at these elite tracks is pervasive and systematic.
In a sport where the stakes are so high and the pressure on the horses is so immense, one of the most shocking realities of horse racing is how common it is for horses to die from injuries suffered during competition. One study found that one horse out of every 22 races suffers an injury that prevents it from finishing. And it is estimated that three thoroughbreds die each day in North America from catastrophic injuries sustained during a race.
A lack of regulation, transparency and willingness on the part of the racing industry to address these problems has kept the truth of how many horses die on-track from equine fatalities hidden from the public. Only California and New York have public databases that catalog equine injuries and deaths; Kentucky does not.
A number of other issues plague the industry, including a waning interest in horse racing among Americans; just 1 to 2 percent list it as their favorite spectator sport. And horse racing has one of the highest rates of drug abuse in any sport, with most horses receiving cocktails of legal and illegal drugs to mask pain and enable them to perform at increasingly exorbitant physical stresses. Eight Belles and Medina Spirit are just the most recent of countless racehorses to die under these conditions. If they had survived, both would be approaching their golden years now. But they died at the whim of what they were made to do.