Does a horse have to be a pure thoroughbred or registered under a studbook to be able to be a racehorse?

Question

Does a horse have to be a pure thoroughbred or registered under a studbook to be able to be a racehorse?

Answer 1

No that is a misnomer.  Actually what is important is the gait.  

All horses move naturally with four basic gaits: the walk, trot or jog, canter or lope, and gallop.

Besides these basic gaits, some horses pace, instead of trot.In addition, there are many "ambling" gaits such as the slow gait, rack, fox trot running walk, and tölt. These special gaits are often found in specific breeds, often referred to as "gaited" horses because they naturally possess additional gaits that are approximately the same speed as the trot but smoother to ride. Technically speaking, "gaited horses" replace the standard trot which is a 2 beat gait with one of the four beat gaits.

Horse breeds with additional gaits that often occur naturally include: the Tennessee Walking Horse which naturally performs a running walk; the American Saddlebred which can be trained to exhibit a slow gait and the rack; Paso Fino, which has two ambling gaits, the paso corto and paso largo; the Peruvian Paso, which exhibits the paso llano, and sobreandando; and Icelandic horses which are known for the tölt. The fox trot is found in several breeds, most notably the Missouri Foxtrotter. Standardbreds, depending on bloodlines and training, may either pace or trot

Answer 2

yes

Answer 3

Studbook, and have to have ALL the records, like breeding, the stud, medical stuff, and all the stuff like that.

Answer 4

it depends on the race.  Some races (most of them in the US, and I think in England too) are restricted to thoroughbreds... and they must be pure thoroughbred which means they can trace their heritage all the way back to one of the 3 foundation sires (the 3 Arabians that were bred to the King's mares).

Other races are restricted to quarter horses, but i don't think that they have to be purebred quarter horses... if a quarter horse has won enough and reached a certain level, they're allowed to breed with thoroughbreds and then the foal is an appendix quarter horse.  And then appendixes are allowed to breed with thorougbreds too if they reach the minimum requirements... so it's conceivable to register as a quarter horse even though the horse is mostly thoroughbred.  That's the rules for general quarter horse showing.  I'm not certain if quarter horse racing allows that or if its more restricted.  Quarter horse races tend to be very short distances though... and the quarter horse is the fastest horse over short distances... so a quarter horse with a lot of thoroughbred in him would probably not likely do very well in those races.

I've also seen races for Arabians, but not very often.  I think it's limited to certain tracks and those tracks run only a few Arabian races... it's not like TB or QH races where you have a whole track devoted to the breed and there's races all year long.

There are harness racing tracks for Standardbreds... Standardbreds don't carry jockeys though... they will either trot or pace (like a trot, but the legs move differently) and pull their harness and driver behind them.  I believe that Standardbreds must be purebred too, but I'm not sure.

I've never seen the breeds race against each other all in one race so I don't think there are any races like that.  And I think those are the only racing breeds.

Answer 5

yeah has to be registered

Answer 6

No, it just has to be a WINNER.

Although thoroughbred helps.

Answer 7

Thoroughbred is a noun, not an adjective.  

Thoroughbred is a breed of horse, just like Selle France, or Trakkenaer.  To be a Thoroughbred Race Horse you have to be just that "A" Thoroughbred, not thoroughbred.

All that being said they do race other breeds, most notably:  Standardbred (also noun, not adjective), Quarter Horses, and Arabians.

FYI:  

The 3 original sires are:

"The Burly Turk"

"The Darley Arabian"

"Eclipse"

Answer 8

I would think that being extremely fast would count for something.

Answer 9

In short "yes".

The Thoroughbred is a breed and only Thoroughbred horses are permitted to run "under Jockey Club Rules".

Other breed societies do have their own races - Arabian, Quarter Horse, etc - but they are open to horses of that breed only.

In Britain we do have something called the non-thoroughbred register which is for part-thoroughbred horses that have an unregistered parentage.

Answer 10

Depends on which studbook!  The Jockey Club registers only purebred, pedigreed Thoroughbreds.

However, Arabians and Quarter Horses also race in their own series.