Horse racing dates back thousands of years but only took off as an organised event in Britain after the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660.

Horse racing dates back thousands of years but only took off as an organised event in Britain after the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660.

There is evidence of racing’s existence as early as 2000BC.

The ancient Hittite civilisation wrote about the training of racehorses, and later the Greeks and Romans are known to have raced them to judge their strength and suitability for use in war.

The first races in Britain are thought to have been organised by the Romans around 200AD, although the first recorded meeting was during the reign of King Henry II at Smithfield, London, in 1174.

The sport’s modern history can be traced back to 1654 and the ban Oliver Cromwell placed on it and other avenues of pleasure.

In 1660, with Cromwell dead and King Charles II on the throne, racing was revived with huge enthusiasm.

It became a pastime closely associated with the aristocracy and its patronage by Charles (“the father of the British turf”) led to it being dubbed “the sport of kings”.

The most common form at that time was “match” racing, which pitted two horses against each other.

This is regarded as the origin of flat racing.

At the turn of the 18th Century racing received its most important and lasting legacy.

Three Arab stallions – Darley Arabian, Godolphin Arabian and Byerley Turk – were imported and bred with 35 Arab mares and suitable native mares.

Every one of today’s thoroughbreds can trace its male ancestry to these three stallions.

In 1711 Queen Anne founded what would become Ascot racecourse and for the first time spectators were able to bet.

The popularity of multi-horse races was growing and racecourses sprang up all over the country.

As racing’s popularity and profitability grew, so inevitably did corruption, malpractice and cruelty.

Racing’s first regulatory body, the Jockey Club, was founded at the Star and Garter Tavern in Pall Mall in 1752.

It soon relocated to Newmarket and set out a list of rules that remain largely unchanged.

Along with sanctioning racing at designated courses, the club introduced a registry of colours for each owner so each horse would be identifiable among a field of runners.

The club accountant James Weatherby was assigned to trace the pedigree of every racehorse in England.

His research resulted in 1791 in the “Introduction to the General Stud Book”, which detailed the descendants of 387 mares.

The “General Stud Book” is still meticulously recorded today and no horse can race unless listed there.

By 1814 the Jockey Club had designated the five “classic” races.

Open to three-year-olds, the 2,000 Guineas, the St Leger and the Derby make up the Triple Crown (flat racing’s holy grail).

The other two classics are the 1,000 Guineas and the Oaks, which are contested by three-year-old fillies.

During the 19th Century steeplechasing developed as a sport.

Popular among huntsmen in the winter, it was originally run through the countryside, with horses chasing from one church steeple to the next, negotiating fences and hedges along the way.

Steeplechasing events began to be run on prepared tracks in the early 1800s and it was first recognised as a sport by the Jockey Club in 1866.

The National Hunt Committee, set up in 1889, amalgamated with the Jockey Club in 1968.

Since 1993, UK horse racing has been controlled by The British Horseracing Board, responsible for planning, training, financing and marketing.