Of course, it is the ‘connections’ of thoroughbred racehorses or, in other words, the owners and trainers thereof, who ultimately decide in which specific races their horses compete. As far as ownership is concerned, a horse can race in the name of an individual, a partnership, a company, a syndicate or a racing club. Syndicates and racing clubs are forms of shared ownership, which offer members the opportunity to own, or lease, an interest in a horse or horses. Either way, the initial purchase of a thoroughbred racehorse is typically around £15,000, but can, of course range up to hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds.
Of course, even a monumental investment is, by no means, a guarantee of success. Indeed, one of the biggest ‘flops’ of modern times, The Green Monkey, was sold for a world record price of $16 million back in 2006, but was placed just once from three starts in minor company and recouped just £5,327 of his purchase price in prize money. Furthermore, owners are also faced with annual training, veterinary care and other costs, which, according to the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), can amount to up to £23,000.
Thoroughbred racehorse trainers, on the other hand, a responsible for working out daily training programmes specific to the needs of each horse in their care, monitoring the development of each horse and assessing its potential. Thus, trainers colloborate with owners to strategise race plans for each horse. That said, not every horse is eligible to run in every race; factors that detemine into which races a horse can legitimately be entered include age, sex, experience and, of course, perceived ability, which is represented, numerically, by a handicap rating, allotted by a team of handicappers at the BHA. ‘Juvenile’ races on the Flat, for example, are restricted to two-year-old horses, while ‘maiden’ races are restricted to horses that have never won a race.
Generally speaking, a horse must race at least three times to achieve an initial handicap rating and, once it has done so, it is, as the name suggests, eligible to run in handicap races. Indeed, in Britain, most horses run in handicap races for the majority of their careers. After each race, each horse is assessed by the team of handicappers and its official handicap rating may increase, decrease or stay the same, depending on its perceived level of performance. Different ‘classes’ of handicap exist, graded from Class 2 – which includes valuable, historic races such as the Wokingham Stakes at Royal Ascot – to Class 7, according to the ratings band of horses who can compete.
Thus, the official handicap rating of each horse effectively determines in which races it can, and should compete. However, on the Flat, once a horse has achieved an official handicap rating higher than 110 it is no longer eligible to run in handicaps at all. It has to compete, instead, in conditions, classified, Listed or Pattern races, which, in the case of the latter, include Group 1, Group 2 and Group 3 races. At the other end of the ratings scale, selling and claiming races are available to horses of modest ability.
One of the stated aims of the BHA Racing Department is to ensure ‘that horses are catered for broadly in accordance with ability over their entire careers’. Thus, the conditions for individual races are drawn up Clerks of the Course, more often than not following consulation with the Department. Furthermore, all race programmes must comply with BHA General Instructions (BHAGI), with regard to minimum requirements for races to be included, which are then published weekly on the Racing Calendar.