How to Bet on a Horse Race
A horse race is a competition between a pair of horses (or a single horse with a jockey) where the objective is to win by crossing the finish line first. There are a variety of ways to bet on a horse race, including placing bets (betting on a particular finish place) and’show’ bets (bets on a first, second or third). The payoffs for these bets differ based on the type of bet made.
A popular way to bet on a horse race is to bet ‘win’. In this type of betting, a bet is placed on the horse to come in first place in the race. When a bet is placed on ‘win’, the payoff is usually higher than betting’show’, which is a bit more risky and has lower payouts on average.
When a horse is declared ‘winner’, its name appears in the winning circle and its win bets are paid out. The rest of the bets are calculated by the odds of the horse’s finishing position. The odds are determined by how many horses are entered in the race, the number of wins and losses, and how close a particular horse is to the lead or the finish line.
The sport of racing has improved in some ways since Eight Belles and Medina Spirit died, but the death of a young horse at the track still provokes a wave of public outrage and an outpouring of sadness. Sadly, this trend is not likely to end anytime soon.
Horse races involve a lot of physical stress on animals that are still in adolescence. The most common causes of death in the sport are heart failure or pulmonary hemorrhage (bleeding out of the lungs) and shattered limbs. Horses that break down are often found with a ruptured ligament or a broken spine, and some have skin so thin that the bones are visible.
Breeding 1,000-pound thoroughbreds with massive torsos, spindly legs and fragile ankles is a recipe for breakdowns. The unnatural training and confinement of a racehorse inhibit its natural instinctive behaviors, which can manifest as compulsive behavior such as cribbing (biting on the gate) and pacing.
If you witness a racehorse die catastrophically in a race or in training and move on from it with little more than a pang of remorse, you are depriving that animal of the dignity and respect it deserves. To learn more about the cruelty of horse racing, please visit PETA’s website. There, you can find out more about overbreeding, abusive training practices, drug use and the transport of American racehorses to foreign slaughterhouses. All of these issues threaten the future of racing and should not be ignored any longer. The time to address them is now, before it’s too late for the next Eight Belles or Medina Spirit. Then, it might be possible for this great American sport to be a force for good instead of destruction.