One of the terms you may find funny or confusing are the prefixes used before the names of amateur riders. Depending on an amateur rider's status when it comes to how long they have been riding, you may see a Mr., Captain or even a Mrs. Prefix on race cards. A horse that is "backward" is actually a horse that still needs to mature or is not considered fit enough to compete. A "Dam" is not a barrier that holds water back but is actually what a horse's mother is called while a "Gelding" is a horse that has been castrated.
There are a lot of terms you can learn online with a little search. You can get yourself acquainted with certain horse race betting terms like "Evens" where your previous bet of £10 earns you the same amount when you win. When you say "accumulator", you are actually referring to a previous win being placed on another bet and when you say "odds on", you are actually winning less than your original bet, like a £4 bet may win you only £2. There are also betting terms like "monkey" which is a term used for a £500 bet, a "pony" which is not meant to mean a small horse but is actually a £25 bet or "jolly" which is a term used when you are betting on the horse that is favoured to win or has the lowest odds.
Aside from these betting terms, there are also course and race terms that may easily confuse the neophyte race spectator. Terms like "furlong", which is a unit of measurement used on racetracks and is equivalent to one-eighth mile or 220 yards, is commonly heard here along with "paddock" which is the place where horses are paraded before and after a race or a win. Another term you might hear when it comes to race tracks is the term "going" which means the condition the track is in. "Going" reports can state that a track is Heavy, soft, firm, good or somewhere in between.
Horses' ages are also subjected to similar race jargon. When you say that a horse is a "juvenile", it means the horse is approximately 2 years old. A "colt" or a "filly" is a male or a female horse respectively that is four years old. A "mare" is a 5 year old female horse and a "yearling" is a horse of any gender that is a year old.