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Background. The Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes constitute the American Triple Crown of horse racing, and since 1919, only 13 horses have accomplished the feat.

Dr. Sue McDonnell, a certified applied animal behaviorist at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine, is doubtful that horses understand winning or losing a race run on a track as running on a track is unnatural, The Horse reports.

First conclusive evidence horses hurt by whips, whips don’t aid jockeys. Two papes published in journal Animals lend support to a ban on whipping in horse racing. They respectively show that horses feel as much pain as humans would when whipped, and that the whip does not enhance race safety.

Jockeys aren’t whipping their horses in the last 100m of a race to increase safety or to remind their horse to pay attention. During the last 100m of a race, whips can be used at a jockey’s discretion, which essentially means horses can be whipped most when they are at their most fatigued and least able to respond.

It’s not that horses cannot understand winning or losing a chase in natural circumstances, just that so much about racing is not at all natural. In natural social contexts, horses do seem to “race” one another.

Many experts agree that horses do, in fact, remember their owners. Studies performed over the years suggest that horses do remember their owners similar to the way they would remember another horse. Past experiences, memories, and auditory cues provide the horse with information as to who an individual is.

tldr: They don’t want to win, they just want to be with the rest of the herd and not be the last! Very experienced race horses might have learned they should get to the front, but still don’t get WHY they should be there.

There is less sexual dimorphism among horses than humans. Studies of running, rowing, speed skating, and swimming races have shown that human males are on average 11 percent faster than women. The gap between colts and fillies—male and female horses younger than 4 years old—is around 1 percent.

Best Cup Numbers / Saddlecoths As shown below horses assigned numbers 4 and 12 lead with 11 wins. The most successful horse number of the past 36 years is 6, with a total of 6 winners.

Like most things that have a disproportionaly male distribution, it’s because women were once barred from the sport and had to fight against convention to even gain the right to participate. This leads to many fewer women even considering the possibility of becoming a jockey.

Rosie Napravnik is the most recent, and successful, woman to ever compete in the Kentucky Derby. Like Krone, Napravnik is famous for competing in the Derby twice (2011 & 2013). She also has is the most successful woman to ever compete in the Derby, finishing ninth and fifth in her respective years.

Across thoroughbred racing, female jockeys are no more common today than they were in 2000, and in top races, for which our data go back further, women are no more common than they were in the 1990s.

Winning Colors (1988), Genuine Risk (1980) and Regret (1915) are the only fillies to win the Kentucky Derby.

Yes, three female horses won the Kentucky Derby. The most recent was Winning Colors in 1988. Genuine Risk won it in 1980 and Regret was the first female Kentucky Derby winner, she performed her feat in 1915.