How racing changed by going global, switching surfaces and making horses fitter

Racing looks different to how it used to be because racing is different to how it used to be. Over the next three days we examine those developments that have reshaped the sport. Their impact has been colossal.

The internationalisation of racing

As the world has got smaller our ambitions have grown bigger. People once tended to stay close to home. Racehorses certainly did. When that changed, so did racing, both nationally and internationally. This is now a truly global sport, one that bears little resemblance to that which went before.

More than ever, our horses go there and theirs come here. It always used to happen now and again, but it was so much harder and felt so much more exotic.