Horse racing is the second largest spectator sport in Great Britain, and one of the longest established, with a history dating back many centuries. According to a report by the British Horseracing Authority it generates £3.39 billion total direct and indirect expenditure in the British economy, of which £1.05 Billion is from core racing industry expenditure and the major horse racing events such as Royal Ascot and Cheltenham Festival are important dates in the British and international sporting and society calendar.
The Jockey Club is the largest commercial horse racing organisation in the United Kingdom. It owns 15 of Britain's famous racecourses, including Aintree, Cheltenham, Epsom Downs and both the Rowley Mile and July Course in Newmarket, amongst other horse racing assets such as the National Stud, and the property and land management company, Jockey Club Estates. The registered charity Racing Welfare is also a company limited by guarantee with the Jockey Club being the sole member. As it is governed by Royal Charter, all profits it makes are reinvested back into the sport.
Sir Mark James Todd is a New Zealand horseman noted for his accomplishments in the discipline of eventing, voted Rider of the 20th century by the International Federation for Equestrian Sports.
Makybe Diva is a champion Australian Thoroughbred racehorse who is the only horse to win three Melbourne Cups and the only mare to win it more than once. She achieved the feat in 2003, 2004, and 2005. She also won the 2005 Cox Plate. She was the highest stakes-earner in Australian history, winning more than A$ 14 million.
Tattersalls is the main auctioneer of race horses in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Racing Post is a British daily horse racing, greyhound racing and sports betting publisher which is published in print and digital formats. It is printed in tabloid format from Monday to Sunday. As of December 2008, it has an average daily circulation of 60,629 copies.
Hawk Wing is an American-bred, Irish-trained Thoroughbred racehorse. Owned by the Magnier family and trained by Aidan O'Brien, the horse won three Group 1 races and was the leading horse in the world in 2003.
Sir Anthony Peter McCoy, commonly known as AP McCoy or Tony McCoy, is a Northern Irish former National Hunt horse racing jockey. Based in Ireland and the UK, McCoy rode a record 4,358 winners, and was Champion Jockey a record 20 consecutive times, every year that he was a professional.
The Weatherbys Group is a UK conglomerate involved in a wide range of activities largely within banking and horse racing. The original business was founded by James Weatherby in 1770.
Equine influenza is the disease caused by strains of influenza A that are enzootic in horse species. Equine influenza occurs globally, previously caused by two main strains of virus: equine-1 (H7N7) and equine-2 (H3N8). The OIE now considers H7N7 strains likely to be extinct since these strains have not been isolated for over 20 years. Predominant international circulating H3N8 strains are Florida sublineage of the American lineage; clade 1 predominates in the Americas and clade 2 in Europe.. The disease has a nearly 100% infection rate in an unvaccinated horse population with no prior exposure to the virus.
Shaamit (1993–2001) was an Irish-bred, British-trained Thoroughbred race horse and sire. In a career which lasted from September 1995 to October 1996, he ran six times and won twice. He was the winner of the Epsom Derby in 1996. He was retired to stud at the end of his three-year-old season where he had limited success. He died in 2001.
Horse Racing Ireland is the governing body of horse racing on the island of Ireland. It is based in the Curragh, County Kildare, next to the racecourse of that name. HRI was founded in 2001, succeeding the Irish Horseracing Authority, itself the 1994 successor to the Racing Board founded in 1945.
The Tennō Shō is a horse race held twice a year in Japan, once in the spring and once in the autumn. "Tenno" means "Emperor of Japan". The races are both International Grade I races. Prior to the 2007 races, both Tenno Sho races were Japanese domestic Grade I races.
The Irish Farmers Journal is a weekly newspaper which provides farming news, specialist advice, market data and country living features to the Irish agricultural industry. As of October 2019, it reportedly had a weekly readership of 263,000. It is the largest selling agricultural publication in both Ireland and the UK, and it had a weekly circulation sale of 62,226 copies at the end of 2018.
Duke of Marmalade was an Irish Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. He is best known for winning five consecutive Group One races in 2008, for which he was named European Champion Older Horse. Upon retirement at the end of the 2008 racing season he stood as a stallion for Coolmore Stud, being moved between stud farms in Ireland and Australia. In July 2014 he was sold and relocated to Drakenstein Stud in South Africa.
Jonathan Hiatt Nicolson Dermot Irwin, is a former blood stock agent, auctioneer, stud owner, publisher and racetrack executive. In 1997, he founded the Jack and Jill Foundation with his wife Mary Ann O'Brien, to provide home health care to severely sick babies. It was set up as a direct response to the Irwin’s experience of caring at home for their son Jack, born with severe brain damage in 1996.
Patrick Joseph Prendergast (1910–1980), known as Paddy "Darkie" Prendergast was an Irish trainer of racehorses. He won seventeen Irish classics and became the first Irish trainer to have a major impact on British flat racing. He trained the first Irish winners of the 2000 Guineas and The Oaks and was British champion trainer for three successive seasons.
Henry Corbet was an English agricultural writer, and editor of the weekly The Mark Lane Express Agricultural Journal for twenty years. Together with John Morton he is considered one of "the leading agricultural editors during the most prosperous period of Victorian 'high farming' of the 1850s and 1860s."
Horse racing in Ireland is intricately linked with Irish culture and society. The racing of horses has a long history on the island, being mentioned in some of the earliest texts. Domestically, racing is one of Ireland's most popular spectator sports, while on the international scene, Ireland is one of the strongest producers and trainers of Thoroughbred horses. The Irish horse racing industry is closely linked with that of Great Britain, with Irish horses regularly competing and winning on the British racing circuit.
Rachael Blackmore is an Irish jockey who competes in National Hunt racing. In 2021, she became the first female jockey to win the Grand National in the 182-year history of the race. She also became the first woman to be leading jockey at the Cheltenham Festival with six victories, including the Champion Hurdle, in 2021. The following year she became the first female jockey to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
