Horse Racing Classes Explained: Class 1 to 7 in Britain

A racecard line at Wolverhampton on a wet Tuesday night in January reads "Class 6 handicap, 0-60". Five months later, at Royal Ascot, another reads "Class 1, Group 1". The number after the word Class is doing the same job in both: it tells the reader roughly how good the horses are and how much the race is worth, on a single scale that the British Horseracing Authority applies to every race run in Britain.

The ladder runs from Class 1 at the top, which holds the Pattern and Listed races, down to Class 7 at the bottom on the Flat. Jump racing uses a shorter ladder. A race's class is fixed by two things the BHA controls: the official ratings of the horses allowed to run, and the minimum prize money the race must offer. Class 2 is the home of the valuable handicaps, Classes 3 and 4 fill the middle of most cards, and Classes 5, 6 and 7 carry the bulk of everyday racing for the lowest-rated horses in training.

Horse racing classes explained: what fixes a race's class

Class belongs to the race, never to the horse. That distinction is the source of most confusion. A horse rated 78 is not "a Class 4 horse" in any formal sense. It is a horse that can run in Class 4 handicaps because its rating fits their bands, and it may also run in a Class 3 race if eligible, or drop into Class 5 if its rating falls far enough.

Two levers decide where a race sits.

The rating band

For a handicap, the class follows almost automatically from its rating band. A race for horses rated up to 85 belongs higher on the ladder than one for horses rated up to 60. For races without a band, such as a maiden or a novice race, the BHA places them according to the standard of horse they are expected to attract and the conditions attached to them.

The minimum value

Every class carries a minimum prize fund that the racecourse must put up if it wants to stage a race at that level. A course cannot dress a cheap race up as Class 2 to raise its profile; it has to pay for the label. The BHA publishes the tariff and revises it, and the figures are deliberately not quoted here because they move from year to year.

The two levers work together. A course wanting a valuable Class 2 handicap must put up Class 2 prize money, and in return it gets horses rated near the top of the handicap scale. A course staging a Class 6 handicap has a modest minimum to meet and gets horses rated far lower. The class number on a card is therefore a compressed summary of the rating band and the money, and a regular racegoer reads it that way without thinking.

• 7Classes on the Flat
• 4Black-type levels inside Flat Class 1
• 3Group levels in the Pattern
• 1971First European Pattern

Fixed features of the structure. The four black-type levels (Group 1, 2, 3 and Listed) apply to Flat racing, the three Groups forming the Pattern; jump racing grades its top races differently and its ladder below Class 1 is shorter. 1971 is the year the first European Pattern took effect.

A class is also not the same as a race type. A handicap can be Class 2 or Class 6. A maiden can be Class 3 or Class 5. The race type says who may enter and how weights are set; the class says how good the field is expected to be and how much is on offer. Reading both together gives a full picture of a race before the runners are even listed.

Class 1: the Pattern, Listed races and the jumps grades

Class 1 is where the best horses run, and it contains races of quite different standing. On the Flat, it covers every Pattern race, which means Group 1, Group 2 and Group 3, and every Listed race beneath them. The five Classics sit in it, as do the championship races at Royal Ascot, Goodwood, York and on British Champions Day.

Over jumps, Class 1 holds Grade 1 and Grade 2 races, Listed races, and the big handicaps now labelled Premier Handicaps. The Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Champion Hurdle are Class 1. So is the Grand National, which is a handicap.

Why this page stops at the door

The internal structure of Class 1 is a subject in itself. How a race earns Group status, how it can lose it, the weights carried, why black type matters to breeders and why a Grade 1 is not quite a Group 1 are all covered in our guide to Group, Grade and Listed races. Here the point is narrower: in the class system, all of it is one rung.

That single rung covers a huge range. A Listed race at a provincial course in early spring and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot are both Class 1. The gap between them is far bigger than the gap between Class 3 and Class 5. The class number alone does not tell the whole story at the top, which is exactly why the Group and Listed labels exist.

What qualifies a horse for Class 1

Eligibility for a Pattern race is not usually set by a rating band. Group races are open to horses of the right age and, in some cases, sex, and the conditions add penalties for previous winners at Group level. A horse rated 80 could in principle be entered for a Group 1, and occasionally owners do enter long shots. It would simply be outclassed. Listed races work in a similar way, though some are restricted by conditions such as previous wins. The handicaps inside Class 1 over jumps are an exception, since they are rated and weighted like any other handicap.

The weights at the top

Group races are run at level weights apart from allowances for age and for fillies and mares, with penalties added in many Group 2 and Group 3 races for horses that have already won Group races. No rating-based handicapping takes place in a Pattern race. That makes Class 1 different in kind from every rung below it on the Flat, where handicaps make up most of the programme.

Class 2: heritage handicaps and the valuable races just below the top

The richest handicaps in Britain are Class 2. That surprises people who assume a handicap must be a lesser race, and it is the cleanest example of class measuring something other than prestige.

The heritage handicaps

The BHA gives a small group of traditional, valuable Flat handicaps heritage status. They include the Lincoln at Doncaster, which opens the turf season, the Royal Hunt Cup and the Wokingham at Royal Ascot, the Northumberland Plate at Newcastle, the Stewards' Cup at Goodwood, the Ebor at York, and the Cambridgeshire and the Cesarewitch at Newmarket in the autumn. These races attract big fields of horses rated just below Pattern standard. Their prize funds are large, in several cases larger than those of Listed races and some Group 3s.

That is the oddity. A Listed race is Class 1 and a heritage handicap is Class 2, yet the handicap can be worth more. The explanation is that class is not purely a value scale. Class 1 is defined by the Pattern, whose purpose is to identify the best horses for breeding; Class 2 is defined by the rating band, and the heritage handicaps happen to be the highest-value races in it. A breeder values a Listed win far more than a heritage handicap win because of black type. An owner of a gelding with no stud value may reasonably prefer the handicap.

The other Class 2 races

Beyond the heritage group, Class 2 contains handicaps with high rating bands and conditions races for horses not quite at Pattern level. A Class 2 handicap on a big Saturday might be for horses rated up to the high 90s or above, which places them within striking distance of Listed company.

Over jumps

Jump racing's Class 2 holds valuable handicap chases and hurdles for high-rated horses, along with some conditions races. Several of the most valuable jumps handicaps sit above Class 2 because of their Premier Handicap status, so the top of the jumps handicap programme straddles the boundary between Class 1 and Class 2 in a way the Flat does not.

A useful working rule for the Flat: if a racecard shows a Class 2 handicap at a major meeting, the field contains some of the best handicappers in training, and the winner may well be stepping up into Listed or Group 3 company within months. How those horses are weighted against each other is the subject of our page on how British handicap ratings and weights work.

Classes 3 and 4: the middle of the pyramid

Walk the paddock before the third race on a summer Saturday at Haydock, Sandown or Newbury. It is probably a Class 3 or Class 4 handicap. These two classes fill most of the supporting races on a big card, and they carry the bulk of the races a typical horse of reasonable ability will contest in its career.

The bands that define them

On the Flat, Class 3 handicaps are for horses rated in roughly the 80s and low 90s, and Class 4 handicaps sit below that, with titles commonly reading 0-80 or 0-85. Those are typical figures rather than fixed boundaries; the BHA has redrawn the bands more than once and may do so again. Over jumps, the equivalent middle classes cover horses rated well over 100 on the jumps scale, reflecting its numerically higher figures.

Maidens and novices at this level

The middle classes are not only handicaps. Maiden races, for horses that have not yet won, and novice races, for horses that have won only a limited number of races, are frequently Class 4 or Class 5 on the Flat. At big meetings a maiden or novice race can be Class 3 or higher. The classification follows the quality of horse the race is expected to attract, and a novice race at Newmarket in October is a different proposition from one at a small track in March.

Why big cards are built here

A racecourse staging a high-profile meeting wants competitive races to sit around its feature event. Class 3 and Class 4 handicaps give large fields of genuinely competitive horses, at a prize level the course can sustain across six or seven races. There are a great many horses rated in these bands, so the races fill.

Class (Flat)	Typical handicap band	Typical races besides handicaps
Class 1	Not rating-banded	Group 1, 2, 3 and Listed races
Class 2	High 80s to 100-plus; heritage handicaps	Conditions stakes
Class 3	Roughly 80s to low 90s	Novice and maiden races at big meetings
Class 4	Roughly 0-80 or 0-85	Novice and maiden races
Class 5	Roughly 0-70 or 0-75	Maidens, novices, some claimers
Class 6	Roughly 0-60 or 0-65	Claimers, sellers, classified races
Class 7	The lowest bands	Low-rated handicaps and classified races

The bands in the table are the shapes seen on racecards in recent years, not fixed points. The BHA treats them as a setting it adjusts, and a racegoer should read any race title rather than rely on a remembered boundary.

Classes 5, 6 and 7: the base of British racing

Most racehorses never run above Class 4. A large share never run above Class 5. The base of the ladder is where the majority of British racing actually happens, in volume terms, and where most horses in training spend their careers.

What runs here

Class 5 holds handicaps for horses rated around the 70s and below, along with maiden and novice races at smaller courses. Class 6 holds lower-rated handicaps, claimers, sellers and classified stakes. Class 7, the bottom rung on the Flat, is for the lowest-rated horses in training, typically in handicaps and classified races.

The all-weather tracks carry a large part of this programme. Through the winter months, when the turf Flat season is closed, racing at Wolverhampton, Southwell, Newcastle, Kempton, Lingfield and Chelmsford keeps going, and much of it is Class 5, 6 and 7 racing. The midweek cards at turf courses through the summer lean heavily on the same classes.

Why so many horses sit at the bottom

The shape is a pyramid for a simple reason. Racehorses are bred in large numbers, and ability is unevenly distributed. A small number turn out good enough for the Pattern, a larger number for valuable handicaps, and the majority settle at a level where the handicapper's ratings put them in the lower bands. A horse that starts a career in Class 4 maidens and slowly finds its level may spend years in Class 5 and Class 6 handicaps, with occasional wins, before retiring.

Why these races matter

Low-grade racing is easy to dismiss and wrong to. It keeps racecourses running through the year, provides much of the betting content that funds the sport through the levy and media rights, gives young jockeys their first rides and winners, and gives ordinary owners a realistic chance of a winner. The economics of owning a horse at this level, and the costs that make it hard, are set out in our guide to racehorse ownership in the UK.

1. 1DebutThe horse makes its first runs in Class 4 or Class 5 maidens or novice races at a level matching its expected ability.
2. 2First markAfter qualifying runs the handicapper sets an official rating that fits the bands of Class 5 handicaps.
3. 3Finding its levelDefeats bring small drops in its rating, opening up Class 6 handicaps where it becomes competitive.
4. 4A winA victory lifts its rating, so it returns to Class 5 races with higher bands.
5. 5SettlingOver several seasons the horse moves between Class 5 and Class 6, its rating rising and falling with its form.

An illustrative path for a horse of modest ability; many horses follow different routes, and a few climb rather than fall.

The jumps ladder set beside the Flat

National Hunt racing uses the same principle with a shorter ladder. Class 1 holds the Graded and Listed races and the Premier Handicaps, and the numbered classes below it cover handicaps and other races by rating band and value, stopping earlier than the Flat's Class 7.

Higher numbers on a different scale

A jumps rating band such as 0-120 looks far higher than anything on the Flat, where few horses outside the Pattern are rated above 100. The difference is a matter of scale, not ability. The two codes use separate rating scales, and the jumps scale runs numerically higher. A jumps band of 0-100 sits near the bottom of the National Hunt ladder; a Flat band of 0-100 sits near the top of the handicap programme. Comparing figures across codes is meaningless, and the reasons the codes differ are discussed in our guide to Flat against jump racing.

Hurdles and fences

A jumps horse can hold separate ratings for hurdles and chases, and the races over each obstacle have their own bands within the class structure. A horse rated 125 over hurdles and 110 over fences will find its level in different classes depending on which it is running over.

Bumpers and hunters' chases

Two specialist race types sit near the bottom of the jumps ladder in most cases. National Hunt Flat races, known as bumpers, are races without obstacles for young jump-bred horses that have not run on the Flat or over jumps; they are usually run in the lower classes. Hunters' chases, for horses that have qualified in point-to-points and are ridden by amateurs, are also generally placed low in the ladder. Both have exceptions at the big meetings: the Champion Bumper at the Cheltenham Festival is a Grade 1, and the leading hunters' chases are run at a higher class than an ordinary midweek one.

Feature	Flat	Jumps
Top tier	Class 1: Group 1, 2, 3 and Listed	Class 1: Grade 1, 2, Listed and Premier Handicaps
Lowest tier	Class 7	Ends before Class 7
Rating scale	Lower figures	Higher figures
Separate ratings by obstacle	No	Hurdles and fences rated separately
Big handicaps	Heritage handicaps in Class 2	Premier Handicaps in Class 1

Decoding a race title word by word

A British race title is dense. Take an invented one: "Class 4 Handicap (3yo+) 0-85, 1m, Fillies and Mares". Every part of it restricts or describes the field.

Taken a word at a time

"Class 4" places the race in the middle of the ladder and sets its minimum value. "Handicap" says the weights will be set from official ratings. "3yo+" opens it to horses aged three and upwards, so three-year-olds will meet older horses with weight-for-age applied. "0-85" says only horses rated 85 or lower may run. "1m" is the distance, a mile. "Fillies and Mares" restricts the race to females.

Some titles carry more. A rating band with a floor, such as 46-65, excludes horses below 46 as well as above 65. A title might add "Apprentice", meaning only apprentices may ride, or "Nursery", meaning it is a handicap for two-year-olds. Over jumps, "Novices' Hurdle" restricts entry to horses that had not won a hurdle race before a set date in the season, and "Handicap Chase" is a handicap over fences.

1. 1Class 4The race sits in the middle tier and carries at least the BHA's Class 4 minimum prize money.
2. 2HandicapWeights are set from each horse's official rating, one pound per point.
3. 33yo+Three-year-olds and older horses may run, with weight-for-age allowances applied.
4. 40-85No horse rated higher than 85 on the day the weights are set may run.
5. 51mThe race is run over one mile.
6. 6Fillies and MaresOnly female horses may take part.

The example race is invented; the conventions are those used on British racecards.

Two more titles, read the same way

An invented jumps example: "Class 3 Handicap Chase (4yo+) 0-130, 2m 4f". It is a middle-tier race over fences for horses aged four and over, rated no higher than 130 on the chase scale, run over two and a half miles. Note the figure. A band of 130 would be beyond almost every Flat handicap in the country, yet over fences it describes a solid middle-ranking chaser, which is the scale difference at work.

An invented low-grade Flat example: "Class 6 Classified Stakes (3yo+) 0-55, 6f". The class marks it out as a race near the base of the ladder. The word classified means horses rated 55 or lower may run, but they meet at level weights rather than handicap weights, apart from the age and sex allowances. A horse rated 55 meets one rated 40 on the same terms, which is the whole point of the race type: it rewards the best horse in a band instead of levelling the field.

Why the order matters

The class comes first because it is the quickest guide to quality. A regular racegoer often reads nothing else to decide whether a race is likely to be competitive or weak. The band comes next because it says who will be in it.

Race types that run through every class

Class and race type are two different axes. A grid of the two would have something in nearly every square. The main types are worth setting out because each controls entry in its own way.

Maidens

A maiden race is for horses that have not won. On the Flat, they range from Class 2 contests for well-bred two-year-olds at big meetings to Class 5 or 6 maidens at small tracks. Weights are level apart from age and sex allowances.

Novice races

A novice race on the Flat is for horses that have won no more than a limited number of races. Winners carry a penalty. Over jumps, the term means a horse that had not won over that type of obstacle before the start of the season, and novice hurdles and novice chases make up a large part of the winter programme.

Conditions stakes

A conditions race is a non-handicap whose entry and weights are set by written conditions rather than ratings. The conditions might specify age, previous wins or prize money earned, with penalties for previous winners. They sit mainly in Class 2 and Class 3.

Classified stakes

A classified race is open to horses rated no higher than a given figure but is run at level weights rather than handicap weights, with allowances for age and sex. It gives lower-rated horses a race in which a strong horse within the band is not penalised by its rating.

Sellers and claimers

In a selling race, the winner is offered for sale at auction after the race. In a claimer, any runner can be claimed after the race for a price set out in advance under the race conditions. Both are concentrated in the lower classes and serve as a market for moving horses between yards.

Each of these types feeds horses into handicaps. A horse runs its qualifying races in maidens and novice events, earns a rating, and moves into handicaps at the class its rating fits. A horse that drops a long way in the ratings may find its best chance in a claimer or a seller.

Moving up and down: rating changes and dropping in class

A horse does not stay in one class. Its rating moves with its form, and the bands of each class let it in or shut it out.

Rising out of a band

Suppose a horse rated 82 wins a Class 4 handicap with a 0-85 band and is raised to 89. It can no longer run in that race next year or in any similar handicap with an 85 ceiling. It has to move up to Class 3 races with higher bands, where it meets better horses at weights closer to their merits. A horse can be forced into a class higher than it would choose, and many horses win once off a lenient mark and then struggle for a long time at the higher level.

Dropping back

The reverse happens as horses lose form or age. A horse rated 92 that runs poorly for a season may drop into the 70s, at which point it becomes eligible for Class 4 and Class 5 races again. Commentators describe this as a horse "dropping in class", and the phrase usually signals a horse whose form has been against higher-rated opposition and which now meets weaker rivals.

Dropped in class: what the phrase means

The phrase is used loosely. Strictly, it means a horse running in a lower class than its recent races. A horse that has been running in Class 2 handicaps and appears in a Class 4 race is dropping in class, though its rating has to permit it. A horse coming down from Pattern races into a valuable handicap is also dropping in class, from Class 1 to Class 2.

The drop as a trainer's decision

Not every drop in class is forced by the handicapper. A trainer can choose to run a horse below the level its rating would allow, for example taking a horse rated 84 out of a Class 3 handicap, where it would be near the bottom of the weights, and into a Class 4 race with a 0-85 band, where it is top weight among weaker rivals. The weight goes up but the opposition gets easier. Whether that trade works depends on the horse: some carry big weights well, others do not. Trainers also drop a horse in class to rebuild its confidence after a run of defeats against better horses, a decision the racecard records only as a change of number.

The reverse choice, running a horse above its natural class to chase black type or a big prize, is just as common at the top of the ladder. A filly rated in the 90s might be pitched into a Listed race with little chance of winning, because a third place there adds bold type to her name in a sales catalogue and a handicap win does not.

Class and prize money: who pays and why the bottom is hardest

Each class carries a minimum prize fund set by the BHA. The higher the class, the higher the minimum. Racecourses must meet it to stage a race at that level, and many big races carry far more than the minimum, boosted by sponsors.

Where the money comes from

Prize money in Britain comes from several sources. The Horserace Betting Levy Board collects a levy from bookmakers on their profits from British racing and distributes part of it as prize money contributions. Racecourses contribute from their own revenue, including media rights income from broadcasting pictures to betting shops and online operators. Sponsors pay to have their names attached to races. Owners pay entry fees, which go back into the prize fund.

The balance between these has shifted over the years and is a recurring subject of argument within the sport. The levy was reformed in 2017 to apply to online bookmakers' profits from British racing as well as those of betting shops, and the arrangements continue to be debated.

What the minimum means for a racecourse

For a racecourse the class of each race is a budgeting decision. A course planning a card must decide how many races it can afford at each level, knowing that higher classes draw better horses, bigger crowds and more attention from broadcasters, and cost more to stage. Courses that rely on media rights income from betting shops and online operators want full fields above all, since a race with many runners is worth more to the betting market than a small one. That pushes many courses towards the lower and middle classes, where horses are plentiful and fields fill, and leaves the expensive top classes to the big tracks and big meetings.

Why the lowest classes are the hardest to make pay

At the bottom of the ladder, the prize for winning may be smaller than the cost of keeping a horse in training for a few months. Training fees, vets, farriers, transport and entry fees add up, and an owner of a horse rated 50 who wins two races a year may still be well out of pocket. At the top, a single big win can transform an owner's finances, though very few owners reach that level.

That gap is why British racing argues so persistently about prize money at the lower end. The volume of horses is at the bottom, the money is at the top, and many owners leave the sport after a few seasons of losses. No single season's figures are given here because they change; the mechanism is constant.

From letter grades to numbered classes, and the bands since

The current system is younger than it looks. Before the mid-2000s, British races were graded by letters, A to G, with the Pattern at the top and the lowest races at the bottom. The British Horseracing Board, then the sport's governing body, replaced the letters with the numbered classes, partly to give the structure a clearer link to rating bands and prize values.

The bands have moved since

The rating bands that define the classes have been redrawn more than once since the change. Rating bands such as 0-70, 0-75, 0-80 and 0-85 have come and gone as the BHA tries to balance field sizes, competitiveness and the spread of horses across ratings. Some bands have been made narrower to make races more competitive, and the BHA has experimented with races that carry both a ceiling and a floor.

A plain warning

The boundaries described on this page are typical, not permanent. The BHA treats them as a setting to be adjusted in light of field sizes and the shape of the horse population. Anyone who needs the exact current band for a class should read the race conditions published with each race or the BHA's current programme rather than rely on a memory of how things were. For how these races fit into the shape of the racing year, our guide to the British racing season sets out the calendar, and the England sports hub links our wider coverage.