OUR SPEEDIEST RESULT SERVER
The fastest result service for horse races from UK and Irish racecourses in addition to selected French, US, Hong Kong Dubai and other overseas fixtures. The results page includes instant race results, expert analysis and full finishing order plus replay video. Click the magnifying glass icon to find a specific horse or use the calendar to navigate to the relevant results.
In America, where thoroughbred racing is the biggest spectator sport and a multibillion-dollar enterprise, the equine athletes are pushed beyond their limits on hard-packed dirt tracks. They are whipped, and many of them are injured or break down in their effort to outrun opponents. They are often subjected to cocktails of legal and illegal drugs that mask injuries, speed up their heart rates and boost performance. When they don’t win or are unable to compete, most are sent to slaughterhouses, where they become dog food, glue and even sushi.
Behind the romanticized facade of horse racing is a world of drug abuse, gruesome breakdowns and slaughterhouses. As spectators show off their fancy outfits and sip mint juleps, horses run for their lives.
Usually, only the best runners are allowed to race; the rest are turned out to pasture and bred for breeding. The breeders try to produce horses that can race at two and three years of age, then move them to jumps races as they get older. Typically, the jumps horses start in National Hunt flat races as juveniles, move on to hurdling after a year or so, and then, if they are thought capable of jumping over bigger obstacles and longer distances, progress to steeplechasing.
There are essentially three types of people in horse racing: the crooks who dangerously drug and mistreat their horses, the dupes who labor under the fantasy that the sport is broadly fair and honest, and the far-too-silent majority of good men and women who see wrong but won’t give their all to right it. It is from the latter group that serious reform must come if racing wants to survive and thrive.
The death of 30 horses at Santa Anita in 2019 spurred a series of safety improvements that have spread nationwide. Protocol now requires a necropsy, an examination of vet records and interviews with stakeholders to learn why the horse died. But despite the recent progress, most American races are still rife with cruelty and the deaths of countless horses.