video what your horse is saying on course

Explaining Horse Racing Betting Terms

A person or company who accepts your bets on a race day, shortened to ‘bookie’.

Explaining Form Terms

This is the essential partner to a day at the races, much like a programme at other events. It has all the race form, details of the course and extra information. You can pick them up from racecard huts at Goodwood Racecourse.

Explaining Racing Terms

A common type of race where horses carry different weights depending on their overall rating; better horses carry more weight than their lesser rivals in the hope that this gives all entrants an equal chance of winning.

How to tell if a horse is old?

One way to tell if a horse was old was to open its mouth and look at its teeth, which would reveal its age .

What are horseshoes made of?

They are made of iron, which has the quality of strength, and they are associated with horses and donkeys both of whom have been revered through the ages. So horseshoes have come to mean good luck. There is also a legend from the middle ages about a blacksmith named Dunstan.

Can you lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink?

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink" of course means, you can't make anyone do something they really don't want to do. Some horse quotations are not so easy to decipher.

What does it mean to beat a dead horse?

Beating a dead horse means continuing to talk about a topic that other people think is over, or do something when you have no chance of succeeding. (You can also use flog instead of beat, as in 'flogging a dead horse'.)

What is a dark horse?

A dark horse is a horse that wins a race but nobody expected it. It's used a lot in sports - maybe your country is a dark horse when it comes to the next World Cup. Someone like Belgium - not a team that everyone talks about, but one with great players. You can also use it about someone with an unexpected skill.