How do you read a racecard in horse racing?
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In horse racing, media outlets and official organisations use racecards to help give key details about the horses and jockeys involved in an upcoming race.
Reading a racecard can be confusing at first, but all of the details around a racecard give details to specific parts of that upcoming race.
An example of a racecard
The distance at the top of a race card shows long that particular race is and is measured in a mixture of miles, furlongs and yards. There are almost eight furlongs to a mile and 220 yards to a furlong.
The number of runners signifies how many horses have been confirmed to take part in that race.
The name of the horse is displayed along with its odds of winning the race.
The age refers to how old the horse is and the weight it will carry in that race, which is to be determined by the handicap and race conditions.
Handicaps can be used in races to make sure the weights that each horse is carrying are equal and fair in proportion to the ability of the other horses in the field.
The form column is a guide to how that horse has performed in its latest races, with its most recent performance displayed from right to left. Numbers to the left of a slash in a form guide denotes races from last season and the left of a slash are from the previous season if that horse missed a whole season.
A 0 means that horse finished outside of the top nine in a race
A 'P' or 'PU' shows where a horse pulled up in a race
'F' means it fell in a recent race
An 'R' means that horse refused to run in the race
The letters 'BD' shows the horse was bought down by another runner
Both 'U' and 'UR' are used to show a horse which recently unseated its jockey
The trainer of a horse is the person or people responsible for training that charge.
The jockey is the person riding the horse in that particular race.
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What else can feature in a race card?
As well as form guides and information regarding a horse's jockey and trainer, there are other forms of information that can typically be found on a racecard.
These can include what silks the jockey will wear for that race, as well as the colour of the horse and its rating.
The nationality of the horse, as well as whether it will wear any headgear in the race and the movement of its odds in the betting markets are also often listed on race cards.
This article is the latest from BBC Sport's Ask Me Anything team.
