On October 24th, 2018 we had guest speaker Mark Davis give us a lecture on the horse racing industry in Delaware. Before his lecture I already knew some information about the horse racing industry since my neighbors had horses that they raced in harness racing. I also have a friend from high school who does barrel racing. Even with this information that I had been exposed to it was only a little bit of the industry. Mark Davis went on to explain the industry in more detail on things I hadn’t heard about before. He started out by mentioning how the origins of modern horse racing began in the 12th century when English knights returned from the Crusades with swift Arabian horses. He also mentioned that the earliest records of racing were in England during the year 1530. He then went on to information about the current stats in the US for the industry. In the US there are 9.2 million horses which are used for racing, show, recreation, and other. He also mentioned a common misconception about raising horses. Most people think only the wealthy raise horses. It turns out that there are approximately 34% of horse owners who have a household income of less than $50,000 and 28% have an annual income of over $100,000. After this he mentioned information on Delaware and then different jobs in the industry. Some of the jobs in the industry are judges, investigators, veterinarians, and horseman. One thing I didn’t know was that you needed a license for harness racing.
