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By The Guv'nor · Last updated October 2026
Horse racing abbreviations are the shorthand on racecards and form lines. The ones people ask about most: PU = pulled up, F = fell, UR = unseated rider, BD = brought down, C = course winner, D = distance winner, CD = course and distance winner, BF = beaten favourite and OR = official rating.
Below is my horse racing abbreviations list: form guide symbols first, then the racecard abbreviations around the name, weight and price, then a season of Betfair data on what the popular letters were actually worth. New to cards? Start with how to read horse racing form.
Form figures: numbers, 0, dashes and slashes
The string of figures next to a horse's name is its recent finishing positions, read left to right, with the most recent run on the right. So form of 4-321 means the latest run was a win.
- 1 to 9: where the horse finished. 1 is a win, 2 is second, and so on.
- 0: finished outside the first 9 (the Jockey Club's wording), so anything from a decent tenth to tailed off.
- - (dash): a break between seasons. Racing Post's key calls it a year separation; everything left of it is from an earlier year.
- / (slash): a longer gap. The Jockey Club says it shows the horse missed something like an entire season; Racing Post's key says anything left of it is from the season before last.
What it means for your bet: a slash flags a long lay-off, and a 0 means little until you look at the race. A tenth of 24 can read better than a third of four.
Letters in the form: F, PU, UR, BD, RO, SU
A letter in the form line usually means the horse didn't complete the race, and most of these only happen over jumps. Racing Post uses single letters; other guides use two (PU, UR, BD).
| Letter | Meaning | What it means for your bet |
|---|---|---|
| F | Fell | Check where. A fall at the last while in contention isn't a fall at the first. |
| P or PU | Pulled up by the jockey; didn't finish | Bad sign or non-event; read the race comment. |
| U or UR | Unseated rider | Often a jumping error, sometimes bad luck. |
| B or BD | Brought down by another runner | Not the horse's fault. Don't mark it down like a faller. |
| R | Refused (to jump) | A real red flag. A horse that refuses once can do it again. |
| O or RO | Ran out | Another attitude or steering question mark. |
| S or SU | Slipped up | Mostly bad luck rather than a jumping problem. |
| C | Carried out (by another runner) | Not the horse's doing. |
| D | Disqualified | Look up why; the horse may have run well. |
| L | Left at the start | Once is bad luck. Twice is a pattern. |
| HR / V | Hit rails / void race | Rare; tells you little. |
What does PU mean in horse racing?
PU (or P) means pulled up: the jockey stopped the horse before the finish. The Jockey Club glossary calls it "a horse that drops out of a race and does not finish". A horse can be pulled up because it's tired, beaten or has a problem, so one P on its own doesn't damn it.
What does UR mean in horse racing?
UR (or U) means unseated rider: the jockey came off but the horse didn't fall. Usually it's a mistake at an obstacle, though a hampered horse can unseat too.
Racecard symbols: C, D, CD and BF
- C: has won at this course before.
- D: has won over this distance before.
- CD: has won over this course and distance.
- BF: beaten favourite (more on this below).
What does CD mean in horse racing?
CD means the horse has won at today's course over today's trip. Punters love it because it answers two questions at once: does it handle the track, and does it stay? It doesn't tell you whether that win came off a lower mark or three years ago, and my data below has a surprise on what CD runners returned.
What does BF mean in horse racing?
BF means beaten favourite. Watch the definition, because publishers differ. The Jockey Club says it shows "a horse was favourite for a race, but did not win", while Racing Post's key defines it as "beaten favourite last time out". If you're using a Racing Post card, it's about the last run.
Other markers you'll see
- J and C beside a price: joint favourite of two, or co-favourite of three or more (so a C can mean two different things on the same card).
- NR or N/R: non-runner, a horse withdrawn from the race.
- 1 or 2 beside the trainer's name: first or second run for that trainer.
Headgear and equipment codes: b, v, p, t, h, W1
Headgear is shown as a small letter by the horse's name or weight. A 1 after the letter means first time (b1 = blinkers for the first time), and Racing Post also uses 2 for the second time.
| Code | Equipment | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| b | Blinkers | Cups round the eyes that cut out distractions so the horse concentrates |
| v | Visor | Like blinkers but with a slit for some sideways vision |
| p | Cheekpieces | Sheepskin strips on the bridle that partly block the rear view |
| t | Tongue tie | Stops the horse swallowing its tongue and blocking its airway |
| h | Hood | Covers the ears to muffle the noise of a raceday |
| e/s, e/c, e | Eyeshield, eyecover, eye hood | Different kinds of eye covering |
| Ht | Hood and tongue tie together | Both of the above |
| W1 / W2 | First / second run since wind surgery | A breathing operation since the last run |
The BHA's Rules of Racing define wind surgery as tie back, hobday, epiglottic entrapment surgery, tie forward and soft palate cautery.
What it means for your bet: a 1 says the trainer is trying something new. Whether it works is a numbers question, covered on first-time blinkers, cheekpieces and wind ops.
Ratings, prices and allowances: OR, RPR, TS, SP and claims
- OR: official rating, the handicap mark. The BHA calls it "a numeric representation of a horse's form", with each point worth one pound. A horse usually needs three runs before it gets one, and ratings are revised every Tuesday. More in handicaps and official ratings explained.
- RPR: Racing Post Rating, compiled by that paper's private handicapper and adjusted for the weights in today's race.
- TS: Topspeed, Racing Post's speed rating.
- SP: starting price, the odds when the race starts, used to settle bets unless you took a price (starting price explained).
- BSP: Betfair Starting Price, the exchange's version. Not the same as SP; my data below is all BSP.
What does a 7lb claimer mean?
A claimer is an inexperienced jockey who "claims" a weight allowance: a horse set to carry 9st 7lb carries 9st 0lb with a 7lb claimer up. The Jockey Club says the allowance "is usually 3lb, 5lb or 7lb", shrinking as the jockey rides more winners. On the Flat they're apprentices; over jumps, conditionals (under 26). The BHA's licensing page sets 95 Flat or 75 jumps winners (or being over 26) as the point a rider can apply for a full professional licence.
What it means for your bet: on the one-point-per-pound scale, 7lb is seven points of rating. Weigh it against the rider's inexperience rather than ignoring either.
Distances, going and race-type codes
Winning margins have their own shorthand. A furlong is 220 yards (about 201 metres).
| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| nse | Nose, the smallest official winning margin |
| shd | Short head |
| hd | Head |
| nk | Neck |
| l | Length (½l, 1¼l and so on) |
| dist | A distance: over jumps, more than 30 lengths (Jockey Club) |
| m / f / y | Miles, furlongs, yards (2m4f = two and a half miles) |
Going and race-type codes
Going codes: f/fm firm, g/gd good, s/sft soft, hy/hvy heavy, yld yielding (Ireland), stand standard (all-weather), and confusingly hd for hard. The full scale is on horse racing going explained.
Race types: Hcap handicap, Mdn maiden, Nov novice, NHF National Hunt Flat (a bumper), Ch chase, Hur hurdle, Gp Group (Flat), Gd Grade (jumps), AW all-weather.
What these letters were worth to a punter: one season of data
Here's the bit most glossaries skip. Knowing what CD stands for is easy; knowing whether CD horses are worth backing is the useful part. So I went through a full season of Betfair's BSP files for every UK and Irish race.
| Marker (as I measured it) | Runners (N) | Won | Market's view (BSP-implied) | Return at BSP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Every runner (baseline) | 119,341 | 10.9% | 10.9% | -0.8% |
| Won last time out (a "1" on the end) | 10,922 | 19.4% | 19.4% | -1.5% |
| BF: beaten BSP favourite last time out | 6,766 | 19.1% | 18.6% | +8.3% |
| BF where that beaten favourite was odds-on (small sample) | 624 | 26.4% | 25.7% | +34.8% |
| CD: won at this course and distance earlier in the window | 4,381 | 16.6% | 17.2% | -7.0% |
| C but not CD: its course win wasn't over this trip | 2,283 | 16.0% | 15.8% | +12.0% |
| D but not CD: its distance win wasn't at this course | 11,417 | 13.7% | 14.0% | -2.2% |
| Earlier winner with no C or D | 12,166 | 14.7% | 14.1% | +8.6% |
What the numbers say
The letters are real information: last-time-out winners won 19.4% of the time next time, against 10.9% for all runners. But look at the market column. The price had already worked it out. LTO winners won exactly as often as their BSPs implied, and CD runners won slightly less often than implied, returning -7.0% before commission. CD, the marker everyone points at, was the worst return in the table (Flat -10.0% from 3,515 runners; jumps +5.2% from just 866).
The beaten favourite line is the interesting one: 19.1% winners against an implied 18.6%, and +8.3% before commission. Before anyone builds a system on it, the small print:
- One season only: October to March +4.0% (2,550 runners), April to September +10.9% (4,216).
- UK +11.7% (5,240 runners), Ireland -3.4% (1,526).
- After an illustrative 5% commission on winnings, +8.3% shrinks to about +3.8%.
- The odds-on BF row is just 624 runners (95% range for its strike rate roughly 23% to 30%), so treat +34.8% as noise until another season backs it up.
More on favourites in how often favourites win; why prices beat labels is the whole point of value betting.
How I measured it
Betfair's public BSP win files, UK and Ireland, 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2026: 12,991 win markets and 119,341 runners, every one with a BSP (two Fontwell "to be placed" place markets that sat inside the win files are left out; runners at the BSP cap of 1000 are kept; 16 dead heats settled under the dead-heat rule). "Last time out" is the horse's previous run in the same files, matched on Betfair's runner ID (94,867 runners had one), so runs abroad are missed. Favourite means shortest BSP, not the SP favourite a card uses. C, D and CD only count wins since 1 October 2025, a narrower version of the card's marks, with distance taken from Betfair's race name; 173 runners with a course win and a separate distance win sit in both the C and D rows. Hindsight on one season, not a forecast.
The files record win or lose only, not finishing positions, so they can't answer how fallers and pulled-up horses do next time. That needs proper form data, and I'll add it when I have it.
How I use the shorthand when I go through the cards
Look, I'm essentially a statistics/maths geek (I was a Quantitative Researcher at a Tier 1 investment bank), so a form line to me is data in shorthand. Every letter is a fact about a past race, and the price is the market's opinion of all of them at once. That table says it better than I can: CD next to a horse's name isn't a bet on its own. The question is always whether the price pays me for what the letters say.
The outsiders in my newsletter come from a system that picks out horses that have won or come close at a weight or mark higher than they're running off today. So I lean hardest on the form figures and the OR read together: a figure means a lot more once you know the mark it came off. And because I like outsiders and each-way value, a messy-looking line can still be a bet. Even when they place we make more profit than an odds-on shot winning.
If a line full of Ps and Us leaves me unsure, I skip it. If I am honest, some days nothing on the card is good enough. Understanding that losers are a thing is the key to being a winner longer term, so stake in points and trust the process.
- The Guv'nor
Horse racing abbreviations: questions people ask
What does 0 mean in horse racing form?
A 0 means the horse finished 10th or worse. It doesn't mean it fell or failed to finish; those runs get a letter instead.
What does LTO mean in horse racing?
LTO stands for last time out, the horse's most recent run.
What does NR mean in horse racing?
NR (or N/R) means non-runner: a horse that was due to run but was withdrawn. Under the Tattersalls Committee rules, winning bets on the others that were struck at a price on the day can be cut by a Rule 4 deduction, depending on the withdrawn horse's odds.
Are abbreviations the same on Irish racecards?
Largely, yes. Racing Post's key covers both, with Irish entries such as "yld" (yielding, the Irish going between good and soft) marked IRE. If it's Irish racing you're after, see my Irish horse racing tips.
More in this guide
- How to read horse racing form: a racecard explained line by line
- Horse racing handicaps explained
- First-time blinkers, cheekpieces and wind ops: the stats
- Horse racing betting terms and slang
- How to pick a winner: my form-study checklist
- How to bet on horse racing
I run Bolts Up Daily. I was a Quantitative Researcher at a Tier 1 Investment Bank (essentially a statistics and maths geek), and I now use those skills to analyse UK and Irish racing, profitably enough that most of your favourite bookies won't take a bet from me. Every horse I tip, I'm betting on myself, and every bet comes with a stake in points. I own racehorses too. Look, I can't guarantee every tip is going to win (anyone that can is a fraudster), but I care about profit, not strike rate.
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