The romanticized facade of horse racing—a sport in which wealthy nobles and aristocrats demonstrate their horses’ speed while spectators sip mint juleps—masks a brutal world of injuries, drug abuse and gruesome breakdowns that lead to slaughter. While humans perched on their backs compel these animals to sprint—often at breakneck speeds—in the name of a wager, horses understand self-preservation and will do anything to escape. In the racetrack, that often means being whipped and sometimes even electroshocked to keep them running in close quarters.
The race isn’t over until stewards and patrol judges have inspected the finish and timed it to one-fifth of a second. Afterward, the results are announced. The winning horse is awarded the prize money, or purse.
In the United States, a player who bets on the winner of a race is said to have “backed” a horse. Bets on the first two finishers are known as “place bets.” In Europe, bets on a specific horse to win, place and show are called an Across the Board bet.
During the course of a race, stewards and patrol judges, assisted by a motion-picture patrol, inspect the horses to ensure that they have not committed any rules violations. Those that are found guilty are disqualified. In addition, race officials will photograph the finish to ensure that the result is fair.
Before the start of a race, horses are lined up in stalls or mechanical gates, which are electrically operated at most tracks. Then they’re led to the starting gate, where they stand until the starter releases the doors in front of them at a given signal. Once the start is given, a horse is ridden by a jockey, who holds on to his or her saddle with a girth strap and uses a whip to guide the animal to its full stride.
As they race around the track, jockeys will swap horses at a number of horse stations along the route, where fresh mounts are waiting. Despite the high cost of riding a horse, riders spend 13 to 14 hours a day on the road, swapping mounts at each station and racing for a little more than a mile each. Unless they are very good, most jockeys will be replaced by others after about six races. When they’re no longer useful, most racehorses are sent to slaughterhouses in Canada, Mexico or Japan, where they will be turned into glue and dog food or sold for human consumption. Only a handful are retired to pastures. Few horses who end their racing careers live a happy life, as owners value them only when they’re bringing in winnings. The vast majority will be shot or go to a slaughterhouse where they’ll be made into cheap meat.