Horseracing sheets offer a huge amount of information about a specific horse — everything from its past performances in various races to its lifetime earnings, and even the records of the trainer and jockey. The sheer wealth of data can be intimidating in itself, and the abbreviations can make you feel like you're looking at a page of obscure computer code. A typical race sheet might look like this:

TIME TO FLY	Smith, P.G. (175-30-52-26-15)	Life: 20 4 4 1$160,000
ch c 2 Sir Deeds-AnneMarie-Cash Flow		Tr-Darlene Jones (81-17-9-15)
Or-Randall Jackson, Goshen, N.Y.		Br-Randall Jackson
12Jul03 FL ft78 INV HCP $15,000 1 26 553 1231 1544 4 411/2 2½ 11 11 1½ 264 1544 Smith, P.G. *1.40 Time To Fly, Sunnyside, Flower Girl

It looks confusing, doesn't it? But we're going to break it down so you know what you're reading the next time you visit the track.

Race Sheet Abbreviations

To fit all the relevant information on a race sheet, and still make it readable, race sheets use a lot of abbreviations. Here are some of the most common ones.

Horse's Color

b	bay	ch	chestnut
blk	black	gr	gray
br	brown	ro	roan

Horse's Sex

c	colt (four years old or younger)	h	horse (a male, five years old or older)
f	filly (four years old or younger)	m	mare (a female, five years old or older, or a younger female that has been bred)
g	gelding (a castrated male)	r	ridgeling (a male whose testicles aren't fully descended)

Track Sizes

1/2	one-half mile	7/8	seven-eighths of a mile
5/8	five-eighths of a mile	1	one mile
3/4	three-quarters of a mile

Track Condition

ft	fast (the best condition)	my	muddy (wet, with a soft base)
gd	good (still wet in spots but mostly dry or drying)	hy	heavy (not as difficult to run as muddy, but not as fast as a good track)
sy	sloppy (there may be puddles, but the base is firm)

Race Types (often called “race conditions”)

CD	Conditioned race	FFA	Free-for-all
5000CL	Claiming race (the number indicates the value on this horse)	INV	Invitational
OP	Optional	OPN	Open
EC	Early closer	HC	Handicap
LC	Late closer	MDN	Maiden
STK	Stakes race	QUA	Qualifying race
FUT	Futurity	MAT	Matinee race

Once you understand what the abbreviations mean, the race sheet begins to make more sense. The next step is to know where the information is on the sheet.

Who's the Horse?

The top of the race sheet gives information about the horse, its age and pedigree, its owner, driver or jockey, trainer, and the horse's career highlights. A typical sheet (using a fictional horse, for this example) might look like this:

3 TIME TO FLY	Smith, P.G. (175-30-52-26-15)	Life: 20 4 4 1$160,000
ch c 2 Sir Deeds-AnneMarie-Cash Flow		Tr-Darlene Jones (81-17-9-15)
Or-Randall Jackson, Goshen, N.Y.		Br-Randall Jackson

In this example, the horse is named Time to Fly, and it is horse number 3 today. The jockey is P.G. Smith, and the numbers behind his name indicate how many times he has ridden this year (175), followed by the number of first-, second-, and third-place finishes he has had in those races. He has won 30 of the 175 races, come in second in 52, and finished third in 26.

The “life” numbers provide an overview of the horse's racing career. In this example, Time to Fly has raced twenty times and won four of those races. He has come in second in another four races, and finished third in one race. His lifetime money earnings total $160,000.

The second line contains more information about the horse. The “ch” indicates the horse's color; in our example, he's a chestnut. How do we know Time to Fly is a “he”? The letter immediately following the color indicator tells you the sex of the animal; the “c” tells us he's a colt. The number next to the sex indicator tells you how old the animal is. In our example, Time to Fly is a two-year-old.

The names that come next show the animal's lineage, giving the names of its sire, its dam, and the dam's sire. Next comes the trainer's name, as well as his or her record, which is displayed in a similar format to the driver's or jockey's record. Finally, the top of the sheet indicates the owner and the breeder; this may be the same individual or stable or two different people or stables.

Past Performance

The past performance lines, which are directly underneath the general horse information, give you details about this horse's performance in specific races. The Daily Racing Form, widely considered the bible for racing bettors, also tells you the horse's Beyer Speed Figure, a formula for calculating a horse's running speed that takes into account such variables as time of day, track surface and condition, and so on. Most other racing forms do not include this number, so our example will omit it.

The left half of a typical past-performance line looks like this:

12Jul03     FL     ft78     INV HCP     $15,000     1 26 553     1231     1544    

This part of the past-performance line gives the date of the race (July 12, 2003), the track at which the race was held (FL is the abbreviation for the Finger Lakes track in upstate New York), the track conditions and the temperature at the time of the race. In this example, it was a fast track, and it was 78 degrees. The next column indicates the type of race, in this case an invitational handicap race, followed by the purse for the race. The next series of numbers shows the length of the race (one mile in this case), then the time of the horse who led the race (not necessarily this horse) at the quarter-mile, half-mile, and three-quarter poles. The final number in this section indicates the time, in seconds, of the horse that won the race. The smaller superscript numbers are increments of one-fifth of a second.

The right half of a past-performance line looks like this:

4 41½   2 ½   11    11    1½ 264    1544    Smith,    P.G.    *1.40    Time To Fly, Sunny-side, Flower Girl

This section of the chart gives information on this horse's performance in the race. The first number shows the horse's starting, or post, position. The next three numbers show the horse's position at the quarter-mile, half-mile, and three-quarter-mile poles. The superscript numbers show how many lengths behind the leader, or, if the horse is in the lead, how many lengths ahead of the second horse. In this example, Time to Fly was 1½ lengths behind the leader at the quarter-mile, ½ length behind at the half-mile, and 1 length ahead at the three-quarter-mile post.

The next two numbers show where the horse was positioned entering the homestretch, and where he finished the race. Again, the superscript numbers indicate how far ahead or behind the horse was at these two points in the race. Following these numbers are two times. The first is the time, in seconds, it took this horse to finish the last quarter-mile of the race; the second is the total time, in seconds, it took this horse to run the entire race. The superscript numbers here indicate increments of one-fifth of a second.

The next piece of information is the name of the jockey or driver for this race, followed by the payout for this horse in the win pool. In this example, Time to Fly paid $1.40; the asterisk next to the payout figure shows that this horse was the betting favorite. Finally, the past-performance line shows the first-, second-, and third-place horses for this race.