Horse racing is awash with language and slang that can be disconcertingly unfamiliar to the uninitiated. Some terms are intended, quite deliberately, to bamboozle the novice racegoer, while some are just, well, obscure. Here are a few that you may come across, in the racing press, on the racecourse or even in your local betting shop
Bag – Short for ‘bag of sand’ which, in turn, is rhyming slang for ‘grand’, meaning £1,000; the latter comes from ‘grand’ in its adjectival sense and apparently dates from the early twentieth century
Bits – Usually followed by ‘on’ or ‘against’, meaning odds of 10/11 or 11/10.
Blow up – Nothing to do with a horse losing its temper, but rather weakening in the closing stages of race, due to lack of fitness.
Burlington Bertie – The protagonist of a music hall song from the turn of the century but, in horse racing parlance, rhyming slang for fractional odds of 100/30 or ‘a hundred to thirty’
Carpet – Odds of 3/1; hence ‘double carpet’, meaning odds of 33/1
Cockle – £10; from the rhyming slang ‘cock and hen’, meaning ‘ten’.
Duck egg – From the same derivation as ‘duck’, originally ‘duck’s egg’, in cricket; a ‘0’ in the form figures of a horse, indicating an unplaced run.
Dwelt – A past tense of ‘dwell’, but in the sense of ‘to pause’, rather than ‘to live’; used to describe a horse that is slow to leave the starting stalls.
Handy – A racing position on, or just off, the pace during a race.
Hanging – Deviating from a straight line, one way or the other, usually because of fatigue, but also because of adverse camber.
Keen – Over-racing, to a greater or lesser degree, but inevitably wanting to go faster than a jockey wants and expending vital energy in the process.
Jolly – The favourite in any given race; derived from the phrase ‘jolly old favourite’.
Lady – £5; short for ‘Lady Godiva’, an 11th century noblewoman who, according to legend, once rode naked through the streets of Coventry, but also rhyming slang for ‘fiver’.
Monkey – £500; apparently derived for a Rs. 500/- banknote in circulation in India during the British Raj, which featured a monkey
Plate – An aluminium racing horseshoe; hence ‘spread a plate’, meaning to lose such a horseshoe.
Pony – £25; similar derivation to ‘Monkey’, except the Rs. 25/- banknote featured a pony.
Skinner – Also known as a ‘Result’; a race in which a bookmaker faces little or no payout.
Steamer – Also known as a ‘Springer’; a horse that unexpectedly contracts in price, usually from long odds, in the face of market support.
Tongue tie – Denoted by a ‘t’ on a racecard; a strip of material tied around the tongue and lower jaw of a horse, to prevent the horse swallowing its tongue or slipping it over the bit.
Under pressure – Used to describe a horse being encouraged by its jockey to run faster; a horse may, or may not, respond to such encouragement, hence phrases such as ‘headway under pressure’, ‘weakened under pressure’ and so on.
Village – The main betting ring on a racecourse, usually located in the Tattersalls enclosure.