horse race
Americannoun
-
horse races
plural
-
a contest of speed among horses that either are ridden by jockeys or pull sulkies and their drivers.
-
any formidable contest or competition.
The primary election is expected to be a horse race among four opponents.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Surge, Slate’s weekly politics newsletter for closely monitoring the horse race between Trump’s approval rating and the Washington, D.C., temperature in Celsius.
From Slate ● Aug. 1, 2026
Winning the Derby changes anyone’s life, but it’s magnified when you make history, as DeVaux did by becoming the first female trainer to win the world’s most famous horse race.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2026
For example, there have been no debates and none are planned at the moment, and the lack of polling means that horse race coverage is nonexistent.
From Salon ● Jun. 4, 2026
Political pundits predict a three horse race between Labour, Green and Reform.
From BBC ● Feb. 17, 2026
As we become fluent readers we file away in memory tens of thousands of common word pairs, such as horse race, hunt ducks, cotton clothing, fat people, prime number, old man, and data point.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
