Harness Horse Racing has its roots in ancient times. The modern version of Harness Racing dates from 18th century America, when trotting horses around country roads was a popular rural pastime. The first tracks for Harness Racing appeared between 1800 and 1810. Harness Racing quickly grew in popularity, and by 1825 was a prominent feature at country fairs across the US.

As Harness Racing became incresingly popular, the Standardbred began to develop, a horse bred especially for harness racing. Messenger, an English Thoroughbred is the founding sire of all Standardbreds, arriving in the US in 1788. Messenger was bred with pure Thoroughbred and mixed breed mares, his descendants were then rebred eventually producing a new breed with endurance, temperament, and anatomy uniquely suited to racing under harness. The Standardbred takes its name from the practice of basing all harness-racing speed records on the "standard" distance of one mile.

Harness racing reached its highest level of popularity in the late 1800s, as a Grand Circuit of major fairs became established. A sharp decline in popularity emerged after 1900, with the automobile replacing the horse. Then in 1940, however, Roosevelt Raceway in New York introduced harness racing under the lights with along with parimutuel betting. This innovation ignited a significant revival of the sport, with its number of tracks and annual races taking place exceeding those of Thoroughbred racing. The sport is remains popular in many European countries, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

Steeplechases are races taking place over a 2 to 4 mile course that contains such obstacles as brush fences, stone walls, timber rails, and water jumps. The sport actually developed from fox hunting, when the hunters would test the speed of their mounts during the cross-country chase. Around 1830, organized steeplechase racing began to appear, and remains a popular sport in England to this day. The Grand National held at Aintree every year since 1839 is undoubtedly the most famous steeplechase race in the world. Steeplechase racing occasionally takes place at several U.S. Thoroughbred race tracks. The most famous of these is the U.S. Grand National Steeplechase held every year at Belmont Park.

A variation of steeplechasing - Hurdling - is far less physically demanding for the horses. The obstacles are much smaller hurdles 1 to 2 ft in height, much lower than the obstacles used on a regular steeplechase course, and the races are also normally less than 2 miles in length. Hurdling races are frequently used for training horses that later go on to compete in steeplechases. Thoroughbred horses are usually selected for steeplechase training for their endurance, calm temperament, and larger-than-normal size.

There are roughly 120 course used across the British Isles for Point-to-point races for amateur racers. Though originally run straight across country - hence the name - they are now conducted on oval tracks with built-in fences, commonly situated on farmland.

Modern horse racing traces its origins back to the 12th century, as English knights returned home from the Crusades with swift Arab horses. An increasing number of Arab stallions were imported and bred to English mares over the next 400 years, producing horses that combined speed with endurance. Matching the fastest of these animals in two-horse races for a private wager became a popular diversion of the nobility.

Horse racing emerged as a professional sport during Queen Anne's reign (1702-14), with match racing giving way to races involving several horses on which the ever growing crowd of spectators wagered. Racecourses began to pop up all over England, offering increasingly larger purses, which in turn began to attract the best horses. These purses offered quickly showed that breeding and owning horses for racing was a profitable venture. Alongside the rapid expansion of the sport arose a need for a central governing body, and in 1750 racing's elite met at Newmarket to form the Jockey Club. To this day the Jockey Club still exercises complete control over English racing.

The Jockey Club wrote complete rules of racing, with which to sanctioning racecourses and conduct meetings under. The standards defining the quality of races soon led to the designation of certain races as the ultimate tests of excellence. Since 1814, there have been five races for three-year-old horses designated as "classics." Three races, open to both male horses (colts) and female horses (fillies), combine to make up the English Triple Crown: the 2,000 Guineas, the Epsom Derby and the St. Leger Stakes. Two other races which are open to fillies only, are the 1,000 Guineas and the Epsom Oaks.

The Jockey Club has taken steps regulating the breeding of racehorses. James Weatherby, whose family served as accountants to the members of the Jockey Club, was assigned the task of tracing the pedigree, or complete family history, of every horse racing in England. In 1791 the results of this research were published as the 'Introduction to the General Stud' book. Members of the Weatherby family have continued to record the pedigree of every foal born to those racehorses in subsequent editions of the book since 1793 to the present day. Since the early 1800s only those horses that could be called "Thoroughbreds" and allowed to race were those descended from horses listed in the 'General Stud' book. Thoroughbreds are actually so inbred that the pedigree of every single animal can be traced back father-to-father to one of three stallions, called the "foundation sires." These stallions were the Byerley Turk, foaled c.1679; the Darley Arabian, foaled c.1700; and the Godolphin Arabian, foaled c.1724.