Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
40 free Horse Racing trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Horse racing is the sport of kings and the sport of the 100/1 shot: a ten-length Derby winner can vanish into the night, a jockey can ride all seven winners on one card, and a riderless horse can still win the Palio. Every question here is a story someone might tell you at the rail. The 40 questions cover the great races, from the Kentucky Derby and the Grand National to the Melbourne Cup and the Arc, the horses and riders who defined them, the Triple Crowns on both sides of the Atlantic, the difference between the flat and the jumps, and the betting slang and furlongs that confuse first-timers. A few take you to 2020, when the Derby moved and the Grand National went virtual. It suits a pub quiz, a Derby-day party or a Cheltenham week warm-up. Play it on your phone with instant answers and explanations, or print it for the table.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01By what margin did Secretariat win the 1973 Belmont Stakes, clocking a still-record 2:24?
31 lengths
Secretariat's 31 lengths beat the 25-length record Count Fleet had set in 1943, and that same week he became the first athlete on the covers of Time, Newsweek and Sports Illustrated together.
Q 02Which Louisville track, topped by twin spires since 1895, has hosted the Kentucky Derby since 1875?
Churchill Downs
Churchill Downs can hold roughly 170,000 people once the infield opens on Derby day, more than three times its usual seated crowd of 50,000.
Q 03Which Grand National fence is named for a captain unseated there in the first official race of 1839?
Becher's Brook
Becher's Brook is jumped twice, as the 6th and 22nd fence, and owes its notoriety to a landing side that once dropped 6 ft 9 in below the take-off, re-profiled to under a foot since 2011.
Q 04Which three-time Grand National winner, trained on Southport sands, is buried at Aintree's winning post?
Red Rum
Red Rum won in 1973, 1974 and 1977 and was runner-up in the two years between, and his name is simply the last three letters of his dam, Mared, and his sire, Quorum.
Q 05Which New Zealand-born 1930 Melbourne Cup winner has his hide, skeleton and heart in three museums?
Phar Lap
Phar Lap's heart weighed 6.2 kg, nearly twice a normal horse's 3.2 kg, and sits in Canberra, while his hide is in Melbourne and his skeleton in Wellington.
Q 06Which Henry Cecil-trained colt retired unbeaten in 14 races with a record Timeform rating of 147?
Frankel
Frankel was named after the late American trainer Bobby Frankel, and he was rated the best racehorse in the world from May 2011 until the day he retired.
Q 07Which Triple Crown winner did Seabiscuit beat in their 1938 'Match of the Century' at Pimlico?
War Admiral
War Admiral, the previous season's Horse of the Year, ran his best ever time for the distance and still lost, an upset that made Seabiscuit the number one newsmaker of 1938.
Q 08Which Baffert-trained colt ended a 37-year Triple Crown drought, then won the Breeders' Cup Classic?
American Pharoah
American Pharoah's misspelt name was an inadvertent registration slip that became permanent, and his Classic win made him the first horse to complete racing's so-called Grand Slam.
Q 09Which jockey's seven winners from seven rides at Ascot in 1996 cost bookmakers an estimated £40 million?
Frankie Dettori
Frankie Dettori's 'Magnificent Seven' came at combined odds of 25,095-1, and the flying dismount he celebrates with was taught to him in California by Angel Cordero Jr.
Q 10Which suffragette died after stepping in front of the King's horse Anmer at the 1913 Epsom Derby?
Emily Davison
Emily Davison was carrying a return train ticket and a ticket to a suffragette dance that evening, which suggests she never intended to die under the horse.
Q 11Which record ten-length 1981 Epsom Derby winner was stolen by an armed gang in 1983 and never found?
Shergar
Shergar's captors demanded a £2 million ransom in a plot a former IRA member later attributed to the organisation, and his remains are thought to lie near Ballinamore in County Leitrim.
Q 12Which Paris racecourse stages the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, Europe's richest flat race, in October?
Longchamp
Longchamp sits in the Bois de Boulogne and has staged the Arc since its first running in 1920, bar 2016 and 2017 at Chantilly during a rebuild, with the 2,400-metre prize now worth €5 million.
Q 13Which racecourse, opened in 2010 with a grandstand holding 60,000, hosts the Dubai World Cup?
Meydan
Q 21Which jockey, diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1979, won the 1981 Grand National on Aldaniti?
Bob Champion
Bob Champion's recovery and win became the 1984 film Champions, with John Hurt in the lead, and the Bob Champion Cancer Trust he founded in 1983 has raised millions for research.
Q 22On which day is the Melbourne Cup, a public holiday across much of Victoria since 1876, always run?
First Tuesday in November
The first Tuesday in November sees the race start at 3 pm, when the country pauses for the 3,200-metre handicap billed as 'the race that stops a nation'.
Q 23Which Thoroughbred foundation stallion was ridden by his captain-owner at the 1690 Battle of the Boyne?
Meydan replaced Nad Al Sheba on the same site, and its grandstand holds 60,000 people and contains The Meydan, billed as the world's first five-star trackside hotel.
Q 14Which chaser won three straight Cheltenham Gold Cups from 1964 and holds a record Timeform rating of 212?
Arkle
Arkle's 212 is the highest mark Timeform has ever given a steeplechaser, and fan mail addressed to nothing more than his name and his country still reached his yard.
Q 15Which California track, opened in 1938 under Jack L. Warner, hosted the first Breeders' Cup in 1984?
Hollywood Park
Hollywood Park ran its last race in December 2013 after 75 years, and SoFi Stadium, home of the NFL's Rams and Chargers, now stands on the site.
Q 16Which bet, launched at Arlington Park in 1971, pays only if you name the first three home in exact order?
Trifecta
The trifecta fuses 'tri-' with the older perfecta, a bet on the first two in order, and punters can 'box' it to cover all six finishing orders of three horses.
Q 17Which monarch founded Ascot in 1711 on open heath spotted while out riding from Windsor Castle?
Queen Anne
Queen Anne judged the heath 'ideal for horses to gallop at full stretch', and the Royal Meeting each June still draws more than 350,000 spectators to the course six miles from the castle.
Q 18Which mare won three straight Melbourne Cups from 2003, the only horse to win the race more than twice?
Makybe Diva
Makybe Diva honours Maureen, Kylie, Belinda, Diane and Vanessa, who worked for her owner Tony Santic, and she was bred in Britain before being trained in Australia.
Q 19Which 100/1 shot won the 1967 Grand National after a pile-up at the 23rd fence, now named after him?
Foinavon
Foinavon's jockey John Buckingham had never ridden in the race before, and neither the owner nor the trainer bothered to attend, the trainer having gone to ride at Worcester instead.
Q 20Which Queen Mother-owned horse collapsed 40 yards from the post while leading the 1956 Grand National?
Devon Loch
Devon Loch was ridden by Dick Francis, who went on to write more than 40 bestselling thrillers, and 'to do a Devon Loch' is still shorthand for a collapse on the brink of victory.
Byerley Turk
The Byerley Turk was Captain Robert Byerley's war horse in King William's campaign of 1689-90, and his male line survives today through the 18th-century leading sire Herod.
Q 24Which unbeaten 1760s racehorse, winner of all 18 of his starts, tops most Thoroughbred pedigrees?
Eclipse
Eclipse won all 18 of his races, reputedly without ever being fully extended, and his skeleton is kept at the Royal Veterinary College, which named a learning centre after him.
Q 25Which Australian mare retired unbeaten in 25 starts, including a 2012 Royal Ascot win by a head?
Black Caviar
Black Caviar's jockey Luke Nolen eased up too early at Ascot and barely held on, later admitting it was 'an error that every apprentice is taught not to do'.
Q 26A blanket of 554 of which flower is awarded to the Kentucky Derby winner, giving the race its nickname?
Roses
Roses earned the race its 'Run for the Roses' tag, and the blanket goes each year to a winner that, being a three-year-old, gets only one shot at it.
Q 27Which jockey, with 8,833 career wins, became the oldest Kentucky Derby winner at 54 aboard Ferdinand?
Bill Shoemaker
Bill Shoemaker weighed about 1 lb 13 oz at birth and, family legend says, was kept alive in a shoebox by the stove, yet his win total stood as a world record when he retired.
Q 28Which jockey lost his first 45 races yet rode two US Triple Crown winners, Whirlaway and Citation?
Eddie Arcaro
Eddie Arcaro also won the Kentucky Derby five times, a record later equalled, and fellow riders simply called him 'the Master' for setting the standard in race riding.
Q 29Which jockey, Triple Crown winner on Affirmed at 18, moved to Britain and twice won the Epsom Derby?
Steve Cauthen
Steve Cauthen became the first jockey to win both the Kentucky Derby and the Epsom Derby, taking the latter on Slip Anchor in 1985 and Reference Point in 1987, and topped the British jockeys' table three times.
Q 30Which jockey, nicknamed 'the Long Fellow' for his height, won the Epsom Derby a record nine times?
Lester Piggott
Lester Piggott stood 5 ft 7 in, tall for a flat jockey, served 366 days in prison for tax fraud, and came back at 54 to win the Breeders' Cup Mile within ten days of his return.