Short course IJmuiden Netherlands by Hendrik-Jan Kornelis

About "Short course IJmuiden Netherlands"

by Hendrik-Jan Kornelis

About the artwork

A shortbaanraverij is a horse race with hard trotters and sulky's, which, unlike regular trotting events, is not held on a racecourse, but on a track marked off for the occasion in a street or a meadow. In the Netherlands, a shortbaandraverij is trotted in a straight line of about 300 metres. A short course race is often part of an annual festival week in a town or village.

Especially in Heemskerk and other places in the province of North Holland, this form of trotting has deep-rooted traditions and is organised by associations that have existed for two hundred years or more.

Like all official hard-trotting and racing events in the Netherlands, short-track races are also run under the auspices of the Stichting Nederlandse Draf- en Rensport. This means there is extensive veterinary control, the race is judged by sworn race commissioners (judges) and there is the possibility for the public to place bets with the totalisator.

A short course race, in which a maximum of 24 horses participate, is held according to the knockout system and is therefore a knockdown race, divided into four preliminary rounds (laps), with two horses running against each other each time. The participating horses are divided into pairs. Horse one runs against horse two, horse three against horse four, horse five against six, and so on. So at the end of the first round, only half the number of horses are left, and these move on to the second round, where half also drop out and so it continues until the final, where the four remaining horses compete for first to fourth prize.