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DoubleHandful: A Stride-by-Stride Guide to Horse Racing
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Jun 5 2026
Pages: 310
Weight: 0.92
Height: 0.70 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Horseracing has its own language, traditions, rules and ways of doing things - and much of it is rarely explained. DoubleHandful was written to change that.
DoubleHandful - A Stride-by-Stride Guide to Horseracing is a comprehensive A-Z guide to British horseracing, written by former racehorse trainer Ian Wood, who trained almost 250 winners during a 12-year career. It brings together in one volume the knowledge that racing so often assumes people already know, taking readers behind the scenes and explaining the sport in a clear, practical and engaging way.
Whether you are new to racing, a regular racegoer, owner, punter or simply curious to know more, DoubleHandful is designed to help you understand and enjoy the sport with greater knowledge and confidence.
Learn about:
- A day at the races - from entry and dress code to how to read and understand a racecard
- Owning a racehorse - ownership, partnerships and syndicates, how owners can reclaim VAT, buying at the sales, claiming a horse from a race and how prize money is distributed
- Understanding a race - how the going is determined and its effect on horses, stalls and numbering, the draw, handicapping, race conditions, winning and in-running comments
- Betting and racing terminology - the different types of bets, racing language and slang
- Stewards' enquiries, objections, appeals and whip rules - what happens and why
- The racehorse itself - conformation, height, behaviour, common injuries, equipment and headgear, vision and whether horses are colour blind
- What horses are telling us - what neighing, flicking ears and tail swishing can tell you about their behaviour and emotions
- Questions you may never have thought to ask - Do horses know when they have won? How fast can they run? How far can a week-old foal run? Can horses vomit - or swallow their tongue? How are horses named, and how are an owner's racing colours chosen and registered? And just how safe is horseracing?
- Life inside racing - how young horses are educated, careers and how to become a jockey or trainer, autism in racing, racing charities, rehoming racehorses and life after racing
- Racecourses, television coverage and much more.
More than a book to read once, DoubleHandful is designed to be a racing companion you can return to again and again.
Horseracing explained - stride by stride.
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