Cops almost trapping racehorse linked with cone section (9)

'linked with cone section' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this definition defines the answer.

'cops almost trapping racehorse' is the wordplay.
'cops' becomes 'police' (cops can informally mean the police).
'almost' means to remove the last letter (almost the whole word is kept).
'trapping' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'racehorse' becomes 'arab' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'police' with its last letter removed is 'polic'.
'polic' placed around 'arab' is 'PARABOLIC'.

Can you help me to learn more?