What is a maiden race?

In horse racing parlance, a maiden is a horse – regardless of its age or sex – that has yet to win a race in its selected discipline. Thus, it follows, naturally, that a maiden race is a race in which none of the participants have won a race in their selected discipline. Maiden races are run on the Flat and under National Hunt Rules, so the situation is complicated, somewhat, by horses that progress from one discipline to another, as many do, throughout their careers. A horse that has won a Flat race, or a National Hunt Flat race, but not a hurdle race, is still eligible for a ‘maiden hurdle’ by virtue of never having won a race over obstacles, and so on.

What is the going?

In horse racing, the term ‘going’ is used to describe the condition of the ground at a racecourse, in terms of its moisture content. The going is measured by the Clerk of the Course on a raceday morning and communicated to the Racecourse Association which, in turn, distributes the information to the Press Association. Traditionally, the going was described by one of seven broad, subjective categories, ranging from ‘hard’ to ‘heavy’.

However, for National Hunt racing, going previously described, officially, as ‘hard’ has been outlawed as unraceable in Britain and, for Flat racing, such going is rarely, if ever, experienced anywhere other than Bath; set on the Lansdown Plateau, 780 feet above sea level, Bath is the highest racecourse in the country that stages Flat racing and has no watering system.

Furthermore, for racing under both codes, at least on turf racecourses, the traditional going description is accompanied by an objective, empirical figure, known as a ‘GoingStick reading’. Described as a cross between a spade and a shooting stick, the GoingStick is a device with a single metal probe that is pushed into the ground and measures penetration and shear, which are translated into a figure representing the moisture content of the soil. The GoingStick produces readings between 0 and 15, but a reading below 5 (‘heavy’) or above 10 (‘firm’) usually means that the ground is unraceable.

Of course, some racecourses in Britain also stage Flat racing on synthetic, or ‘all-weather’, surfaces, such as Fibresand, Polytrack and Tapeta. These surfaces, which consist of silica sand, polypropylene fibres and other components, can be rolled or harrowed to adjust their firmness, but the official going description still relies on the traditional, subjective approach. Indeed, all-weather racing has even few categories than turf racing, with the going ranging from ‘fast’, through ‘standard’, to ‘slow’.

What happened to Shergar?

Having won the Derby by 10 lengths – still the widest winning margin in the history of the race – in 1981, Shergar was, for a time, the most celebrated racehorse in the world. Following his last race, in the St. Leger Stakes at Doncaster, later that year, he was retired to Ballymany Stud, in Co. Kildare, Ireland, where he was syndicated for £10 million.

However, less than two years later, on a murky night in February, 1983, Shergar was abducted by a gang of masked gunmen, believed to belong to the Irish Republic Army (IRA), and never seen again. Ransom negotiations – conducted, bizarrely, by British horse racing journalist Derek Thompson – followed, but ended abruptly with an anonymous, but coded, message that Shergar had died ‘in an accident’.

Exactly what happened to Shergar remains an abiding mystery. He may well have died, as suggested by more than one former IRA member, in a hail of machine gun bullets in a stable at a remote farm near the town of Ballinamore in Co. Leitrim – former ‘bandit country’ – near the border with Northern Ireland, after becoming distressed by his new surroundings. However, the IRA has never officially claimed responsibility for his disappearance, his kidnappers have never been officially identified and his remains have never been found.

What is a Stakes Race?

Traditionally, a ‘stakes race’ was any horse race in which some, or all, of the prize money was contributed by the owners of the horses involved. However, nowadays, all owners contribute to prize money through entry fees – calculated as a percentage of the total prize money added to stakes – so, more often than not, the term ‘stakes race’ is used to describe a Listed or Pattern race. Listed and Pattern races are the most prestigious, and valuable, types of horse races, contested by the best horses, who carry the same weight, subject to certain conditions, such as age and gender.

The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) also uses the term ‘conditions stakes race’ to describe a flat race that is below Listed or Pattern status, but is not a handicap, classified stakes, maiden, selling or claiming race.

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