Any racecard, whether it be in printed form, as a self-contained booklet or in a daily newspaper, or online, typically includes a brief synopsis of the recent performances of each horse in each race, displayed as a series of ‘form figures’ immediately to the left of its name. Read from left to right, from the earliest to the latest, the figures indicate the finishing position of the horse in its last half a dozen, or possibly fewer, races; if the horse failed to finish, the figures include an abbreviation indicating the reason why.
Unremarkably, the numbers 1-9 indicate a finishing position between first and ninth, while the number 0 indicates a finishing position of tenth or worse. Beyond ninth place, the figures do not differentiate between lower-placed finishers so, if this information is important to you, for whatever reason, you will need to delve in the detailed formbook. It is also worth noting that the symbols ‘-‘ and ‘/’ are used as separators; the former indicates that figures to its left are from the previous season, while the latter indicates that figures to its left are from the season before last, or earlier.
As far a non-completions are concerned, these are obviously far more common in National Hunt racing than Flat racing. Probably the most common abbreviations in this sphere are ‘F’ for ‘Fell’, ‘U’ for ‘Unseated rider’ and ‘P’ for ‘Pulled up’. The first two are fairly self-explanatory, but a horse may be pulled up for a variety of reasons, usually because it is so far behind its rivals that it has no earthly chance of collecting any prize money. However, a horse may also be pulled up because something is physically amiss, or because of a tack problem, such as a slipping saddle, so further investigation may be necessary.
If a horse bypasses an obstacle, of its own volition, or because it was forced to do so by a rival, it is said to have ‘run out’ or been ‘carried out’, indicated by a letter ‘O’ or letter ‘C’ in its form figures. Other letters you may come across are ‘L’ for ‘Left at start’, ‘R’ for ‘Refused’ and ‘S’ for ‘Slipped up’, ‘D’ for ‘Disqualified’ and ‘V’ for ‘Void race’.