Horse racing is a sport that involves a group of horses competing in a race over a set distance. It is one of the oldest sports in history and originated in ancient Greece when people hitched chariots or mounted on bareback to race each other and test their strength and endurance. The sport was eventually brought to Europe and North America where it is still popular today.

There are essentially three types of people in horse racing. There are the crooks who dangerously drug and otherwise abuse their horses. There are the dupes who labor under the fantasy that the industry is broadly fair and honest. And then there are those in the middle who know the truth and still don’t do enough to fix it.

Those in the middle are the ones who need to listen to the concerns of animal rights activists and the wider public. They need to stop ignoring the issues of animal cruelty in their industry and start doing more to change them. They need to put more effort into the veterinary care of their horses, and they need to make sure that their tracks are safe and clean.

A horse race is a competition between horseback riders, known as jockeys, and a pack of horses. The goal is to have the highest number of points for the winning horse at the end of a specified distance. Various methods are used to determine the winner, including handicapping and betting. A jockey’s score is determined by the total number of points that he or she earns for riding a particular horse, the amount of money won on bets on the winning horse and the performance of other jockeys in a given race.

Individual flat races are classified by age, sex and class or category. They can be short sprints or long distance races. Races over short distances are known as sprints, and races over medium and long distances are called routes or stays.

When journalists covering elections focus primarily on who’s winning or losing instead of policy issues — what’s sometimes called horse race coverage — voters, candidates and the news industry itself suffer, a growing body of research suggests. A study by Johanna Dunaway and Regina G. Lawrence analyzed newspaper articles in the weeks leading up to elections for governor and U.S. Senate in 2004 and 2006. The researchers found that corporate-owned newspapers were more likely to frame elections as a competitive game. This type of reporting is more common in close races and during the weeks before an election, when interest in the results is high. The authors suggest that news outlets incorporate more political analysis into their horse race coverage, and they also recommend that reporters cover the qualifications and proposals of third-party candidates. They also should include coverage of informal vote tallies such as straw polls, which are conducted online and in person by groups that gather to vote for a candidate.