What is “breezing” in horse racing?
Breezing is a term used by clockers who time racehorses’ workouts to describe their morning exercise sessions. It is typically denoted in the past performances by through a “B” following the time of the workout.
Unfortunately the term has historically been applied somewhat differently in the U.S. At western tracks, clockers use it to mean that the horse was working out with little or no encouragement from its rider. It is used to describe a small fraction of workouts, most of which are described as “handily,” meaning that the horses were asked for some speed by their riders.
But in the East and Midwest, clockers typically have used breezing to describe a workout where the rider was encouraging the horse to run and handily to mean that the horse was doing it on his or her own, without much encouragement from the rider.
For that reason, the term breezing doesn’t really convey much in the way of actionable information for handicappers.
If you use workouts in your handicapping, better to purchase a report from a trusted private clocker on your circuit. Or sometimes, particularly with big races like Preakness, the Derby or Belmont, you can now find workouts for individual horses through xbtv.com or YouTube.com and watch for yourself.