The Language Of Horse Racing

In dictionary form but offering much more than dictionary definitions, The Language of Horse Racing presents a guide to the history, development and usage of words and phrases employed on the racecourse, by those who train and look after horses, those who ride them, and those who lose their money betting on them. Here the reader will discover exactly what the distance is, and why it is so called; what the cap was in handicap; what relation the wild goose chase had to the steeple-chase; what is dead about a dead heat; and what the differences are between getting in, getting on, getting out and getting up. The Language of Horse Racing also reveals the language of the racecourse, including the bizarre vocabulary of betting, from the betting boots that early bookies put on, to the faces, heads, sharks and sharps who feed off the buzz and whisper that go round the ring.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Horses communicate with remarkable accuracy in a language of posture, gesture and sound. They express their needs, wishes and emotions to each other and to the rare human being who understands them. After reading this unprecedented, exciting and up-lifting book, you will understand the equine language. You therefore will know how to recognize: A happy horse. A frightened horse. An angry horse. A bored horse. A grieving horse. A frustrated horse. A horse horse in pain. A playful horse. A proud horse. An eagerly competitive horse. And many horses more! Moreover, you will know how to reassure the frightened, calm the angry, comfort the grieving, divert the bored -- and deal with most other human-equine difficulites. You will know how to educate a foal or rehabilitate a rogue. You will know how to look at race horses on their way to the starting gate and differentiate the likely winners from the losers. You even will know how to buy a horse. But best of all, you will finally understand what these grand animals are all about, and you will know better than ever before how they (and we) fit into nature's scheme of things.

Each racing term has a witty illustration by Rosemary Coates. The facing page explains in simple terms exactly what those mysterious racing terms mean. No longer will you be out of the loop when the talk turns to: - Steeplechasers - Weighing Rooms - Nursery Stakes - Maiden Stakes - A Weaver - A colt, a filly, a brood mare, - A flying stallion - On the Nod - The Field - A Puller - Gone to Post - An Each-way Bet and much, much more....

The Encyclopedia of British Horse Racing offers an innovative approach to one of Britain's oldest sports. While it considers the traditional themes of gambling and breeding, and contains biographies of human personalities and equine stars, it also devotes significant space to neglected areas. Entries include: social, economic and political forces that have influenced racing controversial historical and current issues legal and illegal gambling, and racing finance the British impact on world horseracing history and heritage of horseracing links between horse racing and the arts, media and technology human and equine biographies venues associated with racing horseracing websites The Encyclopedia of British Horse Racing provides a unique source of information and will be of great interest to sports historians as well as all those whose work or leisure brings them into the world of racing.

It is generally assumed that anthropologists do their research in remote and uncomfortable parts of the world--places with monsoons, mud huts, and malaria. In this volume, social anthropologist Kate Fox has taken on an altogether more enjoyable assignment, the study of the arcane world of British horseracing. For Fox, field research meant wandering around racetracks in a pink hat and high heels (standard tribal costume) rather than braving killer insects and primitive sanitation. Instead of an amorphous racing crowd, the author finds a complete subculture with its own distinctive customs, rituals, language and etiquette. Among the spectators, she identifies Horseys, Addicts, Anoraks, Pair-Bonders, Day-Outers, Suits, and Be-Seens--all united by remarkable friendliness and courtesy. Among the racing professionals, the tribal structure includes Warriors (jockeys), Shamans (trainers), Scribes (journalists), Elders (officials and stewards) and Sin-Eaters (bookies). Fox includes witty and incisive descriptions of the many strange ceremonies and rituals observed by racegoers--the Circuit Ritual, Ritual Conversations ("What do you fancy in the next?") , Celebration Rituals, the Catwalk Ritual, and Post-Mortem Rituals (naturally, a horse never loses a race because it's too slow)--and their special codes of behavior such as the Modesty Rule, the Collective Amnesia Rule, and the Code of Chivalry. The Racing Tribe is also a refreshingly candid account of anthropological fieldwork, including all the embarrassing mistakes, hiccups, short-cuts and guesswork that most social scientists keep very quiet about.