How a Horse Race Can Affect the Public

Horse racing is a sport that has evolved over centuries into an elaborate spectacle of massive fields, sophisticated electronic monitoring equipment and enormous sums of money. Yet at its core, it remains a contest of speed and stamina between two competing horses. The horse that crosses the finish line first wins.

Amid the roar of crowds and the clang of metal on wood, it took a while for the eleven horses to settle in, but when they did, War of Will made a move around the clubhouse turn and carved out a slim lead over Mongolian Groom, with McKinzie a nose behind him. The ten-horse field had been narrowing for weeks, but when the bell rang to start the race, the lead was still up for grabs.

As the race progressed, each of the three horses pressed the leader, but as soon as they hit the dirt, it was clear who had more energy and endurance. As the horses tired, they began to fall off the pace, and at the halfway point, only the fastest remained in the lead. The rest, including Seabiscuit, were relegated to the back of the pack and battling for scraps.

Unlike football or basketball games, where the outcome of a game can often be predicted by the final score, horse races are more complicated. The winner is determined by a complex system of weightings that take into account the size of the horse, its age and sex. The most prestigious races, called conditions races, offer the biggest purses. But these races are also the most dangerous, and the horses are forced to sprint so fast that they sometimes sustain injuries and breakdowns—or worse.

In fact, a growing number of thoroughbreds are so badly injured during racing that they end up dying. And because the industry is already losing fans and revenue, racing has taken steps to improve safety. Still, PETA and other groups have exposed abuses in training facilities and drug use in the industry, which are linked to many gruesome breakdowns and deaths of horses.

Scholars have studied horse race journalism for decades to understand its impact on the public, and they’ve found that it can encourage people to view politics as a competitive game, with frontrunners and underdogs fighting it out. And that can hurt third-party and independent candidates. It also can elevate the public’s cynicism about political elites, especially among young people who have limited experience voting in elections. That’s why researchers have begun to look into a new type of horse-race reporting, known as probabilistic forecasting, which shows voters how likely it is that their preferred candidate will win the election. The findings have important implications for the future of democracy. Click through to learn more.