Horse Racing in Brazil: Inside One of South America’s Great Racing Nations

When most British racing fans think about international horse racing, their attention tends to go first to Ireland, France, the United States, Australia, Japan or perhaps the major meetings in the Middle East.

Brazil is much less likely to come up. Yet the country has a horse racing history stretching back well over a century, major Group 1 races, two famous racecourses and its own set of Classics.

At the centre of it all are Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The two cities are home to Hipódromo da Gávea and Hipódromo de Cidade Jardim respectively, and between them they host many of the biggest races on the Brazilian calendar.

Horse Racing Has Deep Roots in Brazil

Organised racing in Brazil is certainly not a recent arrival. The Jockey Club de São Paulo dates back to 1875, when it was founded as the Club de Corridas Paulistano. Its first official meeting followed in October 1876 at the old Hipódromo da Mooca.

Rio also developed a strong racing tradition with the Jockey Club Fluminense operating during the 19th century, while the Derby Club opened in 1885.

Those strands of Rio racing eventually came together when the Jockey Club and Derby Club merged in 1932, creating the Jockey Club Brasileiro.

By then, racing had already moved to what would become its most famous Brazilian home.

Hipódromo da Gávea opened on July 16, 1926, which means the racecourse celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2026. That centenary was marked during this year’s Grande Prêmio Brasil festival, giving Brazilian racing a particularly good reason to look back at its history.

Betting Has Always Been Part of Brazilian Racing

As in Britain, Ireland and many other racing countries, betting has long been closely connected with a day at the races in Brazil.

The Jockey Club Brasileiro operates its own racing betting service, with bets including the straightforward winner and each-way alongside exactas, trifectas, quadrifectas and other multiple-race bets.

However, the broader Brazilian betting industry has changed significantly in recent years.

Fixed-odds sports betting was legalised nationally in 2018, with further legislation covering regulated online games passed in 2023.

That means racing and betting fans in Brazil can now find information about casinos and other forms of online gaming. Casino gaming, which you can read more about here, is not necessarily part of the racecourse experience itself, but instead sits within a much larger regulated online betting market alongside sports betting.

Horse racing remains its own very distinct sport, of course, and at tracks such as Gávea and Cidade Jardim the betting is still very much centred on trying to find the winner of the next race!

Hipódromo da Gávea – The Heart of Racing in Rio

It is difficult to talk about Brazilian racing without spending some time on Gávea.

Located in Rio de Janeiro, the racecourse has one of the more unusual settings in international racing. The vast site sits close to some of Rio’s best-known areas, with views towards Christ the Redeemer and the surrounding hills.

According to the Jockey Club Brasileiro, the whole Gávea site covers more than 640,000 square metres, and its racing operation includes around 100 stable blocks and more than 1,000 horses.

For British racing followers, the track is perhaps best thought of as Brazil’s answer to Ascot or Newmarket, although the comparison is far from exact.

The Grande Prêmio Brasil

The Grande Prêmio Brasil is a Group 1 that has been staged at Gávea since 1933 and is now run over 2,400 metres on turf, almost exactly the same distance as the Derby, King George and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

It is widely treated as the main race of the Brazilian season, and the 2026 running took place on June 14th as part of Gávea’s centenary celebrations. Race favourite, Zucca Baby, won the race, collecting over £55,000 in prize money as well as earning a place in the Breeders’ Cup Turf.

The roll of honour also contains one horse who became particularly well known outside Brazil.

Bal a Bali won the race in 2014, the same season in which he completed the Rio Triple Crown. He later raced successfully in the US and became a multiple Grade 1 winner there, showing that Brazilian form can travel very well indeed.

São Paulo Has Its Own Major Racing Scene

Rio is only half of the story; after all, this is a country with a population of more than 213 million!

Around 270 miles away, São Paulo has another important racing centre at Hipódromo de Cidade Jardim.

The racecourse opened on January 25th, 1941, replacing the older Mooca track as the main home of racing in São Paulo.

Its biggest event is the Grande Prêmio São Paulo, another Group 1 contest over 2,400 metres on turf, which celebrated its 103rd running in May 2026, when Quero Te Mucho beat Que Emoção and Zandor.

The meeting stretched across three days with 26 races, showing the size of the event within São Paulo racing.

Brazilian Racing Is More International Than It Might Seem

One of the interesting things about racing in South America is how closely the major racing countries are connected.

Brazil sits alongside Argentina, Uruguay and Chile in a region with a long Thoroughbred racing and breeding tradition. Horses regularly move between the different countries, as well as en route into racing elsewhere in the world.

For owners and breeders, international success can be particularly valuable, as evidenced by the fact that the Grande Prêmio Brasil is connected to the Breeders’ Cup Turf, with the winner in 2026 receiving an automatic place in the US contest at Keeneland.

Horse Culture That Goes Beyond Racing

British racing fans might associate Brazil with football, beaches and Formula One long before they think of horses. Yet Brazil has a huge horse culture, and Thoroughbred racing represents only one part of it.

Across the country, horses are also closely linked with cattle farming, rodeo, vaquejada and one of the world’s largest populations of Mangalarga Marchadors.

The breed developed in Brazil around 200 years ago, particularly in the south of Minas Gerais. Rather than being bred for speed over a racecourse, the Mangalarga Marchador became valued as a comfortable and useful riding horse.

The breed remains a very big part of modern Brazilian horse life, and at the 2026 National Mangalarga Marchador Exhibition in Belo Horizonte, 1,639 horses were entered by 552 exhibitors from 18 states. Over 15 days, the event attracted 215,000 visitors.

The Thoroughbreds contesting races such as the Grande Prêmio Brasil are part of a much larger equestrian world. Fans can follow racing at Gávea, attend a major Mangalarga Marchador show, watch barrel racing or rodeo, and have family links to horses used for everyday work in rural areas.

Racing may provide some of Brazil’s oldest and most prestigious equestrian events, but it shares the country’s affection for horses with a range of traditions that developed far beyond the racecourse.