What is a Horse Race?

Horse race is a colloquial term for an intense competition that involves competing individuals or teams. It is also used to describe an election, particularly when the media focuses on who’s ahead or behind instead of discussing policies and the potential impact on people’s lives. Many journalists are criticized for horse race journalism, but the practice is longstanding and protected by freedoms of speech and the press.

While horses love to run in the wild, where they can roam free and be a part of nature’s natural herds, their instinct is to move away from danger, not toward it. This instinct to flee rather than fight is a major reason why racing has become such a dangerous sport. Horses can suffer terrible injuries on the track, including pulmonary hemorrhage or bleeding out of their lungs, broken necks, severed spines, and even broken legs. The animals that are unable to recover from these injuries can be euthanized or sold off to slaughterhouses.

Aside from its inherent cruelty, horse racing is an unnatural activity. In the wild, horses communicate with each other and other members of their herd, and they’re accustomed to slow, measured movements. On a racetrack, humans perched on their backs compel horses with whips to run at breakneck speeds, often in close quarters. The horses aren’t happy doing this and they resist. Injuries are inevitable, and many horses die at the track or in training, or are euthanized after sustaining horrific, often fatal injuries.

At a more esoteric level, the horse race also can refer to a contest for a leadership role. Many board members and executives are uncomfortable with the “horse race” approach to succession planning, in which overt competition for a top position pits several recognized candidates against each other within an established time frame. However, the horse race method has been successful in attracting and grooming talented leaders at such admired companies as General Electric, Procter & Gamble, and GlaxoSmithKline.

The most famous horse race in the world is the Melbourne Cup, which takes place every year in Australia’s capital city of Melbourne. It’s a long distance race involving thoroughbred racehorses. The winner takes home a purse of about $6 million. The race was first staged in 1935. The race is a key part of cultural preservation to the Aboriginal folk on whose land it’s held, and participants traditionally pray in sweat lodges before participating. They’re also required to wear helmets and life jackets, and the riders are given sacred eagle feathers to place on their mounts. The Suicide Race is not a favorite of animal-welfare groups, however. The horses have to jump a series of very high obstacles, and they’re often forced to keep running on one lead, or direction, all the way around the track. This causes them to tire faster than if they changed leads on command. The race is infamously known as the “world’s deadliest horse race.” It has become a target of criticism from various groups.