Horse races are competitions where horses race for prize money. Most often used to refer to contests between two or more finishers such as the Preakness Stakes which began the Triple Crown series, horse races can also describe close, competitive contests that require effort on all parts such as political campaigns.

Early accounts of horse racing date back to ancient Greece. Over time, it spread throughout nearby countries before making its way across Europe, Asia, and Africa – featuring both chariot and mounted bareback races with horses as race vehicles.

Modern horse racing uses handicaps to give all competitors an equal chance of victory. Based on various criteria such as age, distance, sex and time of year, handicaps are assigned in order to create an equitable competition environment and give each horse a fair shot at success. Handicaps serve a number of functions; including offsetting superior speeds or stamina with size or power advantages or compensating for injuries or poor performances.

While the horse industry promotes itself as an elite and socially acceptable sport, horseracing Wrongs activists criticize it as cruel and inhumane. According to them, many of the over ten thousand American thoroughbreds who die each year due to horseracing Wrongs activities are drugged, whipped, raced too early, trained beyond their limits before being abandoned when no longer winning or eventually slaughtered into dog food, glue or delicacies in France and Japan.

No matter the many scandals or allegations of horse abuse in recent years, the horse racing industry continues to thrive. It has adapted to new technological advances like thermal imaging cameras that detect when horses overheat after racing; as well as MRI scanners, X-ray machines, endoscopes and 3D printers that help spot injuries or signs of illness; in addition 3D printing now plays an increasingly vital role in providing care to injured or ill animals by producing casts, splints and prosthetics for injured or ill animals requiring medical assistance.

Even with its advancements, horseracing remains a dangerous profession for both horses and jockeys. A substantial proportion of horses that die on tracks have been injured; many more become unable to work after suffering serious or chronic problems such as bone fractures, ligament injuries or concussions that prevent further participation in horseracing. Although deaths on tracks have decreased recently, horseracing remains a high-risk activity that requires exceptional physical and mental skills for success.

Blackjack is one of the most beloved card games in casinos and provides an exciting chance for real money wins. But this complex card game demands skill in order to succeed; understanding probabilities & odds is integral in making intelligent decisions at the table; miscalculated chances can result in costly errors at the table; so using a blackjack chart that displays the proper strategy in every circumstance will help avoid these costly errors.

Once familiarized, using the chart can become second nature. It will show which actions to take in each situation based on how likely your hand is of beating that of the dealer, such as drawing when dealt a pair of 6s against an Ace-up dealer; because soft 16s (e.g. 6-4 or 6-6-4-8) have more chance than hard 16s of beating them.

Splitting hands may increase your odds of victory in certain circumstances. This is especially applicable when dealing pairs of 8s or aces – these should always be split. By creating two distinct hands and using them against one dealer upcard to increase results over time.

Understanding when and how to hit in blackjack can often be confusing. Remember that the dealer stands a greater chance of going bankrupt than you do; therefore it would not be wise to attempt to increase your hand by hitting. Instead, stand on hands that total 17 or higher when possible.

At a blackjack game, the dealer receives two cards – one face up and one face down – that the players use to calculate both their own hand value as well as that of the dealer’s hand. Once this calculation has been completed, players may decide whether to stand, double down or hit their hand.

Once you have mastered basic blackjack strategy, you can look into other strategies to increase your winnings. These may include shuffle tracking and card counting methods used to predict probabilities that occur during a session; however, these require considerable practice and dedication before becoming effective.

One way to increase your odds of success by playing shorter sessions is implementing more aggressive strategies at the start of each short session, thereby decreasing exposure to losing streaks and speeding recovery after losses as soon as they happen, thus mitigating overall bankroll impacts more quickly and decreasing impact of losing streaks on bankroll. But beware, as short sessions typically offer lower average returns than longer ones.