can you tell me the meaning of horse race categories?

Question

eg
whats the difference between a group1 race and a class1 race. What is a listed race? What is the best kind? What is a banded? etc. etc.

Answer 1

The Class of race merely describes the amount of prize money the race carries. For example, a Class 1 Listed race can carry no less than £21,500 in prize money and a Class 3 Handicap must carry no less than £9,700 but no more than £18,000.

A Group 1 race is the highest category of race. Included in the Group 1 (or Grade1) races are The Derby, The Oaks, The 2,000 Guineas, The 1,000 Guineas, The Champion Stakes, The St Ledger, The St James Palace Stakes, etc.

The next best type of race is a Group 2, followed by a Group 3, followed by Listed Races.

This classification is also referred to as "The Pattern". The Pattern Committee was set up to grade these top races and they allot the group status according to the quality of horses that have run. Each year the Pattern Committee decide whether to up-grade, or even down-grade a race.

Winning a Pattern race increases the value of a horse. As a result you will often here comentators referring to "earning black-type". This is a reference to te fact that when a horse is sold at auction all of it's races are listed on the page (along with those of it's immediate family), the better races are indicated in bold (or black) type face, to make it easier to glance at a page to see if a horse is any good.

Banded races are the very bottom of the ladder. These races are for the very bad horses that cannot win an ordinary race. In my opinion these races should be scrapped so that bad horses are taken out of training. If we continue to race and breed from bad horses we will end up weakening the breed as a whole.

Answer 2

There is a heirarchy of horse races:
Maiden races are for those who have never won. Therefore, all horses are maidens (at least for one race).

Maiden claiming races are for horses who have never won, but they also can be purchased at the time of the race by anyone. A maiden claiming race for $5,000 for example means that you or I could buy the horse for that amount. By the way, if you "claimed it" you would own the horse before it left the starting gate of the race. That means if it for some reason was injured during the race, etc. you would still own in.

Once a horse has won a race, it can move up the heirarcy of races to higher levels--those levels include claiming races (where it could be purchased), or allowance races (where it is running against other horses in similar conditions).

Finally, a horse (if it were very good) could continue into stakes graded races. The conditions of the race are determined by the racing association. A Graded Race 3 is lower than a Graded Race 2 which is lowere than a Graded Race 1. The Kentucky Derby for example if a Grade 1 stakes race. There are usually several Grade 1 races every weekend throughout the 50+ tracks in the United States.

Answer 3

www.racingpost.com has a guide including reading the form.