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The History of Horse Racing
The high point of US horse racing has conventionally been the Kentucky Derby which, together with the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes, form the Triple Crown for three-year-olds. However, in current years the Breeders' Cup races, held at the end of the year, have been demanding the Triple Crown events, held early in the year, as determiners of the three-year-old winner. They also have an significant effect on the collection of other annual champions.
The matching typical bred event is the Breeders' Crown. There are also a Triple Crown of Harness Racing for Pacers and a Triple Crown of Harness Racing for Trotters. American gaming on horse racing is sanctioned and regulated by state governments, almost always through legalized pari-mutuel betting. Pure-bred horse racing in the United States has its own Hall of Fame for horses, jockeys, and coaches.
While the attention of horseracing fans and the media is focused almost solely on the horse's performance on the racetrack or for male horses or possibly its achievement as a sire, but little publicity is given the clutch mares. Such is the case of La Troienne, one of the most significant mares of the 20th century to whom many of the greatest thoroughbred champions and dams of champions can be traced.
In Australia the most well-known horse is Phar Lap. However, this horse is from New Zealand, as was Cardigan Bay, a pacing horse who enjoyed enormous success at the highest levels of American yoke racing in the 1960s. Racing in Australasia has enjoyed great success with races such as the Melbourne Cup, which has recently been attracting many worldwide entries.
The most famous horses from Canada are Northern Dancer, who after winning the Kentucky Derby and Preakness went on to become the most victorious Thoroughbred sire ever, and his son Nijinsky II. In Canada, however, harness racing is more popular than Thoroughbred racing. Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, home of the Queen's Plate, Canada's premier pure-bred stakes race, and the North America Cup, Canada's premier standard bred stakes race, is the only race track in North America which stages Thoroughbred and Standard bred harness meetings on the similar day. The North America Cup has the largest purse of any Canadian horse race. |
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