beginner question on MAIDEN RACES

[Guest Eboman]

What exactly is a maiden race ? I got these definitions : MAIDEN A horse that has not won a race. MAIDEN CLAIMING A claiming race specified for horses that have never won a race. MAIDEN RACE For horses that have never won. Once a thoroughbred wins a race, it must progress to another category. MAIDEN SPECIAL WEIGHT An allowance race for horses that have never won a race. Now if i look at some of the recent races using the database from the racing post i am getting some races that have the name MAIDEN in them but some of the horses seem to have won races before ? Can anyone shed some light on this ? 19 mar 2004 Fakenham 4:50 Naked Oat winner 28 Apr 2001 at Southwell 17 mar 2004 Huntingdon 2:25 Debbie winner 9 aug 2003 and 20 aug 2003 Also an explanation of the Class would be most welcome, cannot seem to find this kind of basic info anywhere on the net. Anyone know of a site with an explanation of horse racing directed specifically towards beginners ?

[Guest whoneedsrio]

Re: beginner question on MAIDEN RACES Eboman, The two horses you mention have indeed won races, however they were Flat races, the maiden races they ran in last week were under National Hunt rules & the two codes are kept separate so they were both maidens over jumps. Class is quite difficult to define, I tend to favor flat racing so in terms of class bands on the flat maiden races are class D, E or F as shown by the letter in brackets in the race title. However the class of the track also needs to be considered, a class D maiden race at Newmarket or York is almost certain to contain better animals than a class D at Catterick or Folkestone for example & would therefore be usually a classier event. Somewhere in my collection of books is one with a chapter relating to the class scale of racecourses & races I'll see if I can dig it out & post something up. All the best, Rio.