TRAINERS AND JOCKEYS. 33 



is professedly expended by handicappers, are handed 

 over for their test to a mass of the least experienced 

 riders we have ; many of whom are obliged after all 

 to ride several pounds over- weight, while jockeys with 

 twenty years of experience over their heads look on 

 from the top of the stand. Handicappers do well in 

 a large handicap if they get two-fifths of the horses 

 to accept, and a third of the acceptors to the post. 

 They are of course anxious to secure as many accep- 

 tors as they can, and defend their sadly low scale pro- 

 pensities by the plea that the only way to get a heavy 

 acceptance is to make a light handicap. The Jockey 

 Club has at last acted on the suggestion of The Life, 

 and made its raising point 8st. 121bs., instead of 

 8st. 71bs., a slight instalment of justice to the senior 

 jockeys, who are fairly driven out of the saddle at 

 scores of meetings. The miserable low-weight system 

 quite destroys the sneaking sympathy which hunting 

 men, and many who cannot be called racing men, 

 feel for the turf. They look on it as un-English, and 

 naturally enough revert to the weighting before the 

 Chester Cup of 1844 (where Lord George's "feathers" 

 were so prominent) - 3 and it is quite remarkable to ob- 

 serve the hearty feeling which is elicited on a race- 

 course, when a horse with a good thumping 9st. to 

 9st. 51bs. gets gallantly through a sea of "weeds 5 ' 

 in a handicap. We should have been glad to see 9st. 

 made " the raising point" at once for every handicap ; 

 as it has often struck us that it is as much the great 

 touchstone of weight with the majority of race-horses, 

 as one-and-a-quarter miles is of distance. Many very 

 fair ones seem never really comfortable if they have 

 to carry a pound beyond it ; and those who can stay 

 and finish strong at that distance, when the pace is 

 true from end to end, can invariably travel on for 

 two miles at least. Now-a-days, a severely-run seven 

 furlongs will find the majority of horses out, though 

 some of the Comfort tribe cannot get a yard over 



D 



