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Exactly how a racehorse is trained depends on the horse, in terms of its pedigree, level of maturity and temperament, and the individual preferences of the trainer in whose care the horse is placed. Generally speaking, Flat racehorses are trained to be ridden, or ‘broken’, as they approach their second birthday. By this stage, they will already have been ‘lunged’, or worked in a circle at the end of a lunge line, in response to voice commands and body language. Other forms of riderless exercise, such as long reining, improve balance, rhythm, posture and strength before a young horse is asked to accept a rider.

Training typically commences with three-month period of ‘slow’ work or, in other words, high concentration, low movement exercise. Slow work gradually improves cardiovascular fitness and muscle strength, as well as teaching horses to remain focused, yet relaxed, in their work. A horse’s pedigree often gives a trainer a pretty good idea of what to expect, distance-wise, but slow work can help to confirm, or contradict, intial expectations.

Once sufficiently fit, horses progress from hack cantering, at a very steady pace, to ‘fast’ or ‘sharp; work, which involves galloping faster, with or without urging from the rider, over distances of two or three furlongs. Some horses do fast work alone, but others work ‘in company’, alongside another horse. In so doing, they learn to experience pressure and relief from their riders, via leg and reins, and to respond accordingly, rather than simply galloping uncontrolled.

A young, fit and healthy horse typically gallops at a speed between 25 and 30 miles per hour, on average, but the even the slowest of the world records set by different breeds of horse, over different distances, is significantly faster. The American Quarter Horse, a short, stocky, heavily muscled breed, is reputedly the fastest kind of horse, albeit over short distances.

Indeed, in 2005, A Long Goodbye clocked 20.69 seconds for two furlongs, or a quarter-of-a-mile, at Sunland Park Racetrack in New Mexico, thereby setting a new world record of 43.85 miles per hour. However, the horse currently recognised by Guinness World Records as the fastest horse ever is Winning Brew, not an American Quarter Horse but a Thoroughbred, who clocked 20.57 seconds, or the equivalent of 43.97 miles per hour, over the same distance at Penn National Race Course in Pennsylvania.

Of course, in Britain, the minimum distance for any official horse race is five furlongs, or five-eights of a mile. The world record for this distance is 53.69 seconds, or the equivalent of 41.94 miles per hour, clocked by another Thoroughbred, Stone Of Folca, at Epsom Downs Racecourse in Surrey in 2012. In fact, by shaving just one-hundredth of a second off the previous record, set by Spark Chief over the same course and distance in 1983, Stone Of Folca clocked the fastest time since the introduction of electronic timing; prior to that, another Thoroughbred, Indigenous, clocked 53.60 seconds, albeit hand-timed, over the same course and distance.

The ability to analyse and interpret horse racing form remains an essential part of the armoury of the serious punter. Even at a basic level, the racecards available in industry publications, such as the ‘Racing Post’, provide valuable insight into the factors commonly involved in determining the outcome of a horse race.

Incontrovertibly, such factors include course, distance, going and class and, on a horse-by-horse basis, jockey, trainer and owner, collectively known as ‘connections’, age, weight and recent form. On a typical racecard, the so-called ‘form figures’ – that is, the series of numbers and/or letters to the left of the name of each horse – provide an at-a-glance synopsis of recent performances. This information, alone, may be sufficient to allow you to start to form opinions on likely outcomes of the race in question, but to make logical, well-reasoned betting decisions, you probably need to delve a little further into the form.

Naturally enough, horse races are won, more often than not, by horses that are attempting little, or nothing, more than they have achieved in the past. A horse that has won or come to close to winning on one or more recent outings, under the same or similar conditions, is already ‘proven’, to some extent, and worthy of closer inspection. Ultimately, you need to convince yourself that a horse not only has the ability to win the race in question, but is fit and ready to do itself justice under the prevailing conditions.