Day: July 1, 2024

A horse race is a contest of speed among horses ridden by jockeys or pulled by sulkies and driven by drivers. The great horse races evoke feelings of wonder and awe in the audience, whether in Millionaires Row at a major track or from the crowded infield where fans mix, mingle and cheer. But there is more to an exceptional horse race than speed; it is a test of endurance and stamina, as well. A great horse race reaches its climax not at the finish line but at the point when a race has stretched a moment beyond breaking point. The most spectacular examples of this are Secretariat’s 31-length demolition job in the 1973 Belmont Stakes and Arkle’s utterly dominating six-length victory in the 1965 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

In the early days of organized horse racing, six-year-olds with 168 pounds on their backs would run 4-mile heats. A horse had to win two of these to be adjudged the winner. Later, dash racing—a single race of one mile—was adopted in the United States. The resulting standardized weights and shorter distances made for faster races. But even these changes did not make it possible to determine a winner based solely on speed alone. A horse’s overall performance and a jockey’s skill in coaxing an advantage from his mount became the mark of excellence.

The great racehorses of the past, such as Secretariat and Seattle Slew, won their races through a combination of innate ability, determination and talent on the part of the horse and its trainer. The great thoroughbreds were trained in a disciplined manner and were fed high-quality food and water to build their muscle mass. They were also carefully conditioned for each race by being exposed to the track and to the other runners in the field before their race day. In addition, they were tended by skilled trainers who understood that each horse’s body and mind were different and would react to each event in its own way.

Few people outside of the horse racing industry understand this aspect of the sport. People are more likely to focus on the odds of winning or losing than to think about the human beings behind each animal. And the fact is that, when news organizations feature a lot of horse race reporting—which is often done to attract attention and increase readership for stories with low probabilities of success—they risk promoting public cynicism of politics and the democratic process, as multiple studies have shown.

As election day approaches, it may be time to reconsider this kind of strategic journalism. The American people can’t afford to have our democracy become a horse race where the stakes are a few extra votes in key swing states. Those polls are not only costly, but they may also be counterproductive to democratic legitimacy. For these reasons, many scholars who study elections and news coverage have criticized the practice of horse race reporting.

Lottery is a game in which tickets are sold for a chance to win a prize, usually money. The prizes are allocated by a process that relies wholly on chance. Lottery arrangements may involve one or more of the following processes:

The practice of making decisions and determining fates by drawing lots has a long history, including dozens of instances in the Bible. However, the lottery in its modern form is relatively new. The first public lotteries appeared in the 15th century, when towns in the Low Countries began to hold them to raise funds for town fortifications and assistance to the poor. The name “lottery” comes from the Dutch word for drawing lots.

In the United States, state-sponsored lotteries are very popular. Many of them offer a single large prize, but some also have a series of smaller prizes. Typically, the total value of the prizes is lower than the amount of money spent on tickets and promotion, though profits for the promoter and taxes or other revenue are deducted from the prize pool before it is distributed to winners.

A large percentage of American adults play the lottery at some point during their lives. The players are disproportionately low-income, less educated, nonwhite and male. A recent study found that one in eight Americans buys a lottery ticket at least once a year. The lottery is the country’s second largest source of gambling revenues, after casinos.

Despite the widespread popularity of the games, there are serious questions about their fairness and social impact. Lotteries are a major source of revenue for many states, and they have become increasingly important as the state governments’ tax bases have shrunk. Those states have used the arguments about the value of lotteries as a way to avoid raising taxes or cutting services.

While the idea of winning the jackpot is attractive, most people know that they are unlikely to do so. But the lottery offers a glimmer of hope that somebody, somewhere, will be the lucky winner, and that is enough to attract millions of people every year.

The popularity of the lottery is a reflection of human nature. The chance to gain wealth without working for it appeals to the desire for security and the dream of a better life. It is the ultimate indulgence, and people do not want to give it up. It is not surprising, then, that lottery games are most popular during times of economic stress, when voters fear tax increases or cuts in services. But studies have shown that the actual fiscal circumstances of a state do not have much bearing on whether or when it adopts a lottery. In fact, most lotteries win broad public support even when the state government is in a healthy fiscal position.