Horse Racing Handicap Explained: Ratings and Weights
Horse racing handicap explained for British racegoers: how BHA official ratings become weights, what OR means and why a horse can run out of the handicap.
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished Racing Explained27 min read
- One rating point
- 1lb of weight
- Ratings revised
- Every week
- Ratings set by
- British Horseracing Authority
- First public handicapper
- Admiral Rous, 1850s
A horse rated 92 meets a horse rated 80 in a Flat handicap at Newmarket. The first carries twelve pounds more than the second, because that is the gap between their ratings, and in theory the extra lead in one saddle cancels the extra ability in the other so that both arrive at the line together. That is the whole idea of a handicap race in horse racing: the weights are set from each horse's official rating, the best horse carries the most, and one rating point is worth one pound.
Those ratings are not opinions offered by racecourses or trainers. In Britain they are set by the British Horseracing Authority's team of handicappers, reassessed every week, and kept on separate scales for Flat racing and for jumping. The handicapper never sets a weight for a particular race directly. The handicapper sets the ratings, and the weights in every handicap on every card in England, Scotland and Wales then follow from them by arithmetic. Everything else on this page, from the long handicap to the penalty for a quick follow-up win, is a refinement of that one rule.
How a horse racing handicap works: one point, one pound
Most races are not handicaps. A maiden, a novice race or a Group 1 is run at level weights or close to it, with fixed allowances for age and sex, and the best horse is expected to win. A handicap turns that around. It is meant to give every runner a chance, so it loads weight on to the horses with the best form until, on paper, nobody has an advantage.
The conversion is deliberately simple. If the top-rated horse in a race is rated 95 and another runner is rated 88, the second horse carries seven pounds less. Not seven pounds and a fraction, not a figure adjusted for the course. Seven. That simplicity is what lets a racegoer check the weights on a racecard in a few seconds, and it is why the rating has to be right: the arithmetic downstream of it has no judgement in it at all.
Weight is the lever because it is the one thing that can be added to a horse in a controlled way. A pound makes little difference over a furlong; over a mile and a half, or three miles in heavy ground, the accumulated effect is measurable, and the handicapper's scales are built on that relationship. Every horse is weighed out with its rider and saddle before the race, and the winner and placed horses are weighed in afterwards, so the weight on the card is the weight the horse actually carried.
- The ratingThe BHA handicappers give each horse an official rating in pounds, reviewed every week.
- The entriesHorses within the race's rating band are entered, and the highest-rated runner is given the race's top weight.
- The weightsEvery other runner carries a pound less for each rating point below the top-rated horse.
- The minimumA horse whose rating would put it below the race minimum carries the minimum anyway and is out of the handicap.
- AdjustmentsPenalties for recent winners are added and riders' claims or weight-for-age come off, leaving every rating unchanged.
The general sequence for a British handicap; each race's own conditions set its top weight, minimum weight and any penalty.
The theory has an obvious flaw, and nobody in racing pretends otherwise. Ratings describe what a horse has done, while the race asks what it will do today. A three-year-old improving by the week, a horse trying a new trip, a horse on its favoured going for the first time: each can run well beyond its mark. That gap between the handicapper's past and the horse's present is where handicaps are won.
Two further points save confusion later. First, a handicap is a type of race, not a level. Handicaps are run in every class from Class 2, where the heritage handicaps sit, down to the lowest-rated races of midweek winter, and the way those classes are drawn up is explained in our guide to what the numbered race classes mean. Second, there is no such thing as a Group 1 handicap. The top level of the sport is run at level weights by design, a structure set out in the page on how Group and Listed races are graded.
What the OR column on a racecard is showing
Open any racecard in a British newspaper or on a racecourse and there is a column headed OR. It is the official rating: a single figure, in pounds, expressing how good the BHA's handicappers judge the horse to be. A horse rated 70 is assessed as ten pounds inferior to one rated 80. Nothing more is encoded in it. It is not a speed figure, not a forecast and not a private assessment by a ratings firm.
Separate scales, and why a hurdler's 120 is not a sprinter's 120
The BHA keeps ratings on different scales for the two codes. A Flat horse has a Flat rating; a jumper has a rating for hurdles and a separate one for fences, because a horse that is fluent over hurdles may be clumsy over the bigger obstacles, or the reverse. A horse that runs on both turf and the all-weather can also carry different marks for each surface, since plenty of horses act far better on one than the other and a single figure would misrepresent them.
The jumping scale sits numerically higher than the Flat one. That is a convention inherited from the weights involved: jump horses carry roughly two stone more than Flat horses, and the scale was built to fit. The practical result is that ratings cannot be compared across codes. A rating of 120 makes a Flat horse a high-class Pattern performer and makes a jumper a useful handicapper. A rating in the 160s over fences belongs to a horse good enough to contest the big championship chases, and nothing on the Flat scale goes that high.
Within a code, the figures are comparable across all races and ages. A two-year-old rated 85 and a six-year-old rated 85 are judged equal once weight-for-age is accounted for, which matters when generations meet in the same handicap.
What changes the figure
The rating is reviewed weekly. A horse that wins or runs to a higher level than its mark gets a rise; one that runs below it for a while gets a drop. The figure in the OR column on race day is the mark the horse is running off, which may not be its latest rating: a horse rated 78 that won last Tuesday might already have been reassessed to 84 without the new mark yet being in force. The racecard shows the 78, and a penalty, explained further down, covers the gap.
| Racecard term | What it means |
|---|---|
| OR | Official rating, in pounds, set by the BHA handicappers |
| 0-85 in the race title | Only horses rated 85 or lower may run |
| Top weight | The horse with the highest rating in the field |
| Long handicap | The weights before the race minimum was applied |
| (6ex) or similar | A penalty in pounds for a win since the weights were set |
| Claim | An allowance taken off by an apprentice, conditional or amateur rider |
Earning a first mark: the runs needed before a handicap
A young horse arrives on a racecourse with no rating at all. It cannot run in a handicap until it has one, and it cannot be given one until the handicapper has seen enough of it to make a judgement. The usual route on the Flat is three runs in maidens, novice races or similar non-handicaps. Over jumps, a horse needs runs over the right obstacles: hurdle form earns a hurdle mark, and fences need fence form, though the handicapper can use hurdles evidence to set a first chase mark.
The precise qualifying conditions are set by the BHA and have been adjusted more than once. A horse that wins early can be rated sooner than one that is still a maiden, and the counts differ between the codes. Trainers know the current rule; the principle is that the mark has to rest on enough evidence to be fair to the horse and to everyone it will meet.
What the handicapper reads into three runs
Three runs is not much. The handicapper looks at how far the horse was beaten and by what, and that second part matters more than the first. Finishing six lengths behind a horse later rated 95 says far more than finishing two lengths behind one later rated 60. The handicapper also notes where the horse finished in relation to others with established ratings, and what the race was run like: a muddling early pace can compress a field so that beaten horses look closer to the winner than they are.
The obvious problem is that a horse in its first three runs is often not trying to win in any serious sense. It may be learning to settle, finding out about stalls or being given an easy introduction by a rider told not to knock it about. That is legitimate, within limits enforced by the stewards, and it is also why a horse can make its handicap debut off a mark it has every chance of beating.
Why the lightly raced horse is the hardest call
A horse rated off three runs has a mark built on thin evidence, and a horse rated off twelve has one built on plenty. The handicapper knows this, and so does every trainer. It is the reason a horse running in its first handicap attracts attention and the reason the handicapper watches its next run more closely than most. If the first mark was too low, the horse wins and goes up. If it was too high, the horse has to run without success until the figure comes down, which can take weeks.
A small number of horses also get a first mark from a single eye-catching run in a race whose form the handicapper trusts, and some never qualify at all because they keep running too poorly to be assessed. A handicap mark is a privilege of a sort. It has to be earned.
Inside the handicapper's method: beaten lengths into pounds
The finishing positions in a race are recorded as distances: a neck, a length and a half, four lengths. The handicapper's first job is to convert those distances into pounds, so that the result of a race can be expressed on the rating scale.
There is no single conversion, because a length matters more over a short distance than a long one. Over five furlongs a race is over in about a minute and a length is a large margin; over two miles it is a much smaller fraction of the overall effort. Handicappers therefore use a scale in which a length is worth more pounds at sprint distances and fewer as the trip lengthens. As a working rule of thumb, often quoted in racing, a length is worth about three pounds at five furlongs, about two at a mile and roughly one and a half at a mile and a half, with the figure falling further at extreme distances. The BHA does not treat those figures as fixed law, and different handicappers apply judgement to them, but the shape is right: the shorter the race, the more each length costs.
Weights on the day go into the sum
The second adjustment is for the weights carried. If two horses finished a length apart at a mile but the beaten horse carried seven pounds more, the handicapper does not read that as two pounds of superiority to the winner. The beaten horse may have run the better race. Every assessment is therefore a calculation of the form each horse showed after allowing for its weight, and only then compared with the ratings each horse started with.
Working from a fixed point
A result on its own says how the runners compare with each other. It does not say how good any of them are. The handicapper needs an anchor, usually one or two horses in the race with long, consistent records whose ratings can be trusted, and the rest of the field is assessed relative to them. If an exposed horse rated 75 finished third, beaten three lengths at a mile, and ran to its mark, the winner probably ran to the high 70s or low 80s.
Testing the first reading
The assessment of a race is provisional. When the runners from that race appear again, the handicapper learns whether the form was strong or weak. A race whose beaten horses go on to win handicaps off higher marks was a good race, and the winner's rating may be nudged up after the event. A race whose runners keep disappointing was weaker than it looked. This collateral form, built up over dozens of races and hundreds of horses, is what makes the system coherent across a whole season rather than a set of isolated guesses.
The method is careful and fallible. With so many horses and races, errors tend to be found out over a season. For an individual horse in a particular week, a mark can simply be wrong.
From rating to weight: a handicap worked through with invented horses
Take an imaginary Class 4 handicap over a mile for three-year-olds and upwards, rated 0-85. The race conditions, published in advance, say that the top weight will carry 9st 10lb and that the minimum is 8st 2lb. Five horses are declared, all invented for this example and all of the same age so that weight-for-age does not complicate the figures.
| Horse (invented) | Official rating | Pounds below top-rated | Weight carried |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harbour Signal | 85 | 0 | 9st 10lb |
| Quiet Ledger | 81 | 4 | 9st 6lb |
| Tollgate Lane | 77 | 8 | 9st 2lb |
| Morning Sextant | 70 | 15 | 8st 9lb |
| Copper Kettle | 60 | 25 | 8st 2lb (would be 7st 13lb) |
Harbour Signal, top-rated at 85, gets the top weight. Every other horse carries a pound less for every point below 85. Quiet Ledger is four points lower, so carries four pounds less. Tollgate Lane is eight lower and carries 9st 2lb. Morning Sextant, fifteen lower, is down to 8st 9lb.
Copper Kettle is the interesting one. Twenty-five pounds below the top weight would be 7st 13lb, but the race minimum is 8st 2lb. Copper Kettle has to carry 8st 2lb anyway and is said to be three pounds out of the handicap, a situation covered in the next section.
What the rating band in the title does
The "0-85" in the race title is the ceiling. A horse rated 86 cannot enter. A horse rated 60, well below the band's top, can, and that is how Copper Kettle comes to be in the race: the band sets an upper limit, and the lower end is limited only by the minimum weight. Some races also carry a floor, with titles such as 46-60, which stops very low-rated horses from turning up and being carried at a weight far above their mark.
When the top weight comes out
Suppose Harbour Signal is withdrawn before the weights are finalised. Quiet Ledger is now the top-rated runner, and in a standard British handicap the weights are raised so that the highest-rated horse left in carries the top weight of 9st 10lb. Every other horse goes up by four pounds as well. Morning Sextant now carries 8st 13lb. Copper Kettle, previously out of the handicap, would now be set 8st 3lb on its rating, so it returns inside the handicap with a pound to spare.
The relative weights never change. Every horse is still a pound apart for every rating point. What changes is the absolute weight, and with it whether the bottom of the field is squeezed against the minimum. Racecards note the adjustment with a line such as "weights raised 4lb".
Out of the handicap: the minimum weight and the long handicap
Every handicap has a floor below which no horse can be set to carry. In Britain the lowest permitted weight is set in the Rules of Racing, at a different figure for the Flat and for jumps, the jumps floor being well over a stone higher, and individual races can set a higher minimum in their conditions. The BHA has adjusted those floors over the years with jockeys' weights in mind, so the figure printed in a race's conditions is the one to trust. They exist for the jockeys' benefit. A Flat jockey weighing out at the minimum is carrying a saddle and equipment too, and the rider underneath has to be lighter still, a constraint explored in our page on how much jockeys weigh.
When a horse's rating would put it below the minimum, it is out of the handicap. It carries the minimum anyway, which means it carries more than its rating says it should. A horse three pounds out of the handicap is effectively running off a mark three pounds higher than its own. A horse twelve pounds out is running off a mark twelve pounds higher, and its chance is slim unless the handicapper has badly underestimated it.
Reading the long handicap
When the weights for a race are published, they are published twice. The weights proper show what each horse must carry. The long handicap shows what each horse would have carried had there been no minimum, so a horse set 8st 2lb that would otherwise have had 7st 9lb appears in the long handicap at 7st 9lb. Comparing the two tells the reader at a glance which horses are out of the handicap and by how much.
Why connections run horses out of the handicap
Sometimes there is no better option that week on the going the horse needs. Sometimes the horse is improving fast enough that a few pounds wrong costs it nothing. And sometimes owners just want a runner at a big meeting.
The long handicap matters most in the valuable races where top weights are high and fields are large. For the most famous example of all, the weights for the Grand National have their own conventions and are covered in our guide to Grand National weights.
Going up and coming down: the weekly reassessment
Monday's results go into the handicapper's notes. Through the week the BHA's team reviews every race in its division, and the updated ratings are published on a Tuesday, with the new marks taking effect from the following Saturday. A horse running between those dates runs off its old mark.
The rise after a win
A horse that wins a handicap goes up, usually. How far depends on the margin, the strength of the race and whether the horse looked to have more in hand than the official distance shows. A narrow win from a big field of exposed horses might bring a rise of a few pounds. A wide-margin win from horses that had all been running to their marks could bring a rise in double figures. A horse that loses narrowly but runs to a level above its mark can also go up, which annoys trainers more than almost anything else in the system.
The slower drop
Falls are more cautious. A horse that runs below its mark once may simply have had an off day: wrong going, poor draw, a bad trip. The handicapper normally waits for a pattern before dropping it, and the drop typically comes in small steps. A horse can run several times without success before its mark falls by enough to make it competitive again, and some horses go down the ladder for months.
- The winThe horse wins a handicap off its current rating, and the result goes into the handicapper's review.
- The assessmentThe handicapper converts the margins into pounds, allows for weights carried and decides the level of form the horse showed.
- PublicationThe new rating appears in the weekly list published by the BHA on a Tuesday.
- The gapUntil the following Saturday the horse can still run off its old mark, carrying the race's penalty if it has won since the weights were set.
- New mark in forceFrom Saturday the horse is rated off its new figure, and any later handicap weights reflect it.
The usual weekly cycle in Britain; individual races set their own penalty in the conditions, and a horse can be reassessed without having won.
The penalty for a quick follow-up
The gap between a win and the new mark taking effect would be easy to exploit. A horse wins on Monday, the trainer finds another handicap on Wednesday, and it runs off the same old rating. So British handicap conditions include a penalty: a horse that has won since the weights for the race were published carries a set number of extra pounds, printed in the race conditions. The figure varies between races and codes. It is a rough correction, not a reassessment, and if the horse's new mark is going to rise by more than the penalty, the penalty still leaves it well treated. Trainers know this, and the quick turnaround under a penalty is one of the oldest tactics in the game.
Allowances inside a handicap that leave the rating alone
Some pounds come off a horse's weight without its rating changing at all. They are allowances, and there are two main sorts.
Weight-for-age
Younger horses are still maturing. On the Flat, a three-year-old meeting older horses in spring is not yet the equal of a four-year-old with the same ability, and the BHA's weight-for-age scale sets the number of pounds it receives. The allowance depends on the month and the race distance: it is larger early in the year and over longer trips, and it shrinks through the season until, over sprint distances by the autumn, it is close to nothing. Over jumps the same principle applies chiefly to four-year-olds, who receive weight from older horses in the early part of their careers.
Weight-for-age is built into the handicap, not added on top of it. The handicapper rates a three-year-old on the same scale as an older horse, and when they meet in a handicap the younger one carries the weight its rating demands minus the weight-for-age allowance for that month and trip. The rating and the scale are designed to work together so that the generations meet on equal terms.
Riders' claims
An apprentice on the Flat, or a conditional jockey over jumps, can claim an allowance while still learning the trade: seven pounds, five or three, the claim reducing as the rider's total of winners rises. Amateur riders can also claim in some races. The allowance is taken off the weight the horse carries, which is why a racecard shows a number in brackets after the rider's name.
| Allowance | Who receives it | Effect on the rating |
|---|---|---|
| Weight-for-age | Younger horses meeting older ones | None; built into the weights by the scale |
| Apprentice claim | Flat apprentices still riding out their claim | None; the horse simply carries less |
| Conditional claim | Jump jockeys still riding out their claim | None |
| Amateur claim | Amateur riders, in races that permit it | None |
| Penalty | A recent winner running before its new mark applies | None until the handicapper reassesses |
The claim does not alter the horse's mark. A horse rated 70 ridden by a seven-pound claimer is still rated 70. It just carries seven pounds less on the day. That is why trainers book a good claimer for a horse they think is well handicapped: it is weight off without any matching change in the rating. Some valuable races exclude claims entirely, and the conditions say so.
Nurseries, heritage handicaps and the other kinds on a British card
The basic handicap has a family of variants, each with its own restriction.
| Type of handicap | Code | Who can run |
|---|---|---|
| Nursery | Flat | Two-year-olds only |
| Novices' handicap | Jumps | Horses still novices over hurdles or fences |
| Apprentice handicap | Flat | Ridden by apprentices only |
| Conditional jockeys' handicap | Jumps | Ridden by conditional jockeys only |
| Amateur riders' handicap | Both | Ridden by amateurs only |
| Heritage handicap | Flat | Open handicaps given the BHA's heritage status |
Nurseries
A nursery is a handicap for two-year-olds. Nothing about it is unusual except the age of the field. They begin from around midsummer, once enough juveniles have qualified for a mark, and they are where the handicapper's thinly evidenced first ratings are tested hardest. A two-year-old can improve by a stone in a month. Nurseries are consequently among the most unpredictable races on a Flat card, and they frequently produce winners who reappear the following year in a much higher class.
Races confined to particular riders
Apprentice handicaps on the Flat and conditional jockeys' handicaps over jumps give young riders the rides they need to build up winners, and races for amateur riders do the same for those who are not professionals. These are ordinary handicaps with a restricted pool of riders, and claims usually still apply within them.
Heritage handicaps
At the top end of the Flat sit the heritage handicaps, a group of long-established and valuable races the BHA has designated for special status. The Lincoln at Doncaster opens the Flat turf season, the Royal Hunt Cup and the Wokingham are run at Royal Ascot, the Stewards' Cup at Goodwood and the Ebor at York, and the Cambridgeshire and the Cesarewitch are run on Newmarket's Rowley Mile in the autumn. These races are Class 2, they attract big fields of horses rated just below Pattern level, and winning one can be worth more in prize money than winning a Listed race. Over jumps the equivalent big handicaps now carry Premier Handicap status, explained on the Group 1 page.
Rating bands and class
Every handicap is assigned to a class, and the rating band in the title is the main thing that decides which. A higher ceiling means a higher class. That relationship, and the minimum prize money that goes with each rung, belongs on its own page.
Weights framed weeks ahead: the early-closing handicaps
For an ordinary handicap, entries close about five days before the race and the weights appear shortly after. The big ones work on a longer clock.
How the long-range weights are set
The most valuable handicaps close for entries weeks in advance, so that owners and trainers have time to plan and so that the racecourse can publicise the race. The weights are framed from the ratings on the date they are published. From then on, they are fixed.
Fixed means fixed. A horse that wins elsewhere between the publication of the weights and the race does not go up in the race itself. It might have risen eight pounds on the official list, but in this race its weight changes only by the penalty in the race conditions. This is why the trainers of horses entered in the big handicaps try to win something in the interim: the penalty is often smaller than the rise in the horse's rating, so the horse runs in the big race better treated than it would be under its new mark.
What does change
Two things. Penalties are added for horses that win in the interim, and the weights can be raised if the top weight and other high-rated horses are withdrawn, under the same principle as the five-horse example above. A horse well out of the handicap at the initial publication can find itself in the weights by race day as the top of the field thins out.
The handicapper's view of each horse is frozen at a single point weeks before the race. For the trainer of an improving horse, that frozen point is the whole opportunity.
The race that gets its own announcement
The Grand National at Aintree is the most watched handicap in Britain, and its weights are unveiled at a single announcement each year, with the BHA's head of handicapping explaining the reasoning. The National also allows the handicapper some discretion for exceptional horses in a way an ordinary handicap does not, and the detail belongs to the pages on that race.
Keeping the handicap honest: non-triers and sudden improvement
A rating system creates a temptation. If a horse can be run badly enough for long enough, its mark will drop, and when it is finally asked to win it will be carrying far less than its real ability deserves. The Rules of Racing treat this seriously.
The rules against stopping a horse
Every horse must be run on its merits. A rider who does not ride a horse out to obtain the best possible placing, or a trainer who gives instructions not to, is in breach of the rules, and the penalties for both can include long suspensions. The rule is easy to state and hard to prove, because a horse given a quiet ride might be inexperienced, sore or simply not good enough. The stewards and the BHA's integrity staff look at patterns of running, betting activity and in-race behaviour, not only at one ride.
Enquiries into improved form
When a horse suddenly runs far better than its recent efforts, the stewards on the day usually hold an enquiry into the apparent improvement in form. The trainer is asked to explain, and the explanation is recorded: a change of going, a longer trip, first-time headgear, a breathing operation, a return from a break. Most of the time the explanation is noted and that is the end of it. Where it is not convincing, or where it fits a pattern, the case can be referred to the BHA. The mechanics of that process sit in our guide to what happens in a stewards' enquiry.
- The runA horse wins or runs far above its recent form in a handicap.
- Stewards' enquiryThe stewards ask the trainer, or the trainer's representative, to explain the improvement.
- Explanation notedA plausible reason is recorded and published with the race report.
- ReferralWhere the reason is not accepted or the run fits a pattern, the matter is passed to the BHA for further enquiry.
- Disciplinary panelIf a breach is alleged, the case goes before the BHA's independent panel, which can fine or suspend.
A simplified sequence; most enquiries end at the second step with an explanation noted.
Asking for a mark to be reviewed
The traffic runs the other way too. A trainer who thinks a horse has been put up too much, or not dropped enough, can contact the handicapper and ask for the mark to be looked at. The handicapper explains the reasoning, and sometimes changes the figure. The decision stays with the BHA. Trainers' complaints about handicappers are as old as handicapping, and the relationship between the two is best described as professional with an edge.
Where handicapping came from: Admiral Rous and the purpose of it all
Handicap racing in Britain goes back to the eighteenth century, when weights were set by individuals for individual races, often by agreement between owners. It was a matter of judgement and frequently of argument. The man who turned it into a system was Admiral Henry John Rous, a Jockey Club steward who became the club's public handicapper in the 1850s and devised a scale of weight-for-age that was the forerunner of the one still used.
Rous had the authority and the stubbornness to make his weights stick, and what he established was the idea of one trusted handicapper applying consistent principles to every race.
From one man to a team
That job grew beyond one person. As racing expanded, the Jockey Club's handicapping moved to a group of handicappers, each responsible for part of the horse population. The work passed from the Jockey Club to the British Horseracing Board when the Board took over the running of the sport in 1993, and then to the British Horseracing Authority, formed in 2007 when the Board merged with the sport's regulator. The modern team divides the population by code and broadly by distance or age, with a senior figure for each code.
The centralisation matters more than it sounds. A rating means the same thing at Carlisle as at Kempton because one team sets them all, using a shared scale and collateral form across the whole of British racing. Before that, a horse could be well treated by one handicapper and harshly treated by another in the same week.
What handicaps are for
The case for handicaps is plain. Most racehorses are not stars. The overwhelming majority will never run in a Group race, and without handicaps they would have nowhere competitive to go: a horse rated 55 would meet horses rated 80 and lose every time. Handicaps give ordinary horses, and their owners, a genuine chance to win, and they keep fields full and racecards worth reading. A large share of British racing's fixtures are made up mainly of handicaps for exactly this reason.
The system is imperfect, and the honest view is that its imperfections are part of its appeal. The handicapper is a skilled professional trying to predict a race from past evidence, and a trainer's skill lies partly in finding where the handicapper has got it wrong. Racing at this level is a contest between them as much as between the horses. For the rest of the racing calendar and how these races fit into it, the England sports hub collects our guides across the season.