122 THE TURF 



would at once say that there was no denying the 

 common sense of the cry for the abolition of, at any 

 rate, the selling handicap. But these exigencies 

 are not governed by logical considerations. The 

 point is how a man can get rid of a very bad 

 horse ; and the selling handicap supplies the nearest 

 approach to an answer. An owner tries a two-year- 

 old to be very bad — a youngster of which, very likely, 

 he may have formed high hopes, based on his 

 breeding, make and shape, action and apparent 

 capacity to gallop. He fulfils an engagement, and 

 runs wretchedly. " First time out ; ran green," is the 

 excuse ; and he is started again. Again he is badly 

 beaten ; but the owner, perhaps, lays the flattering 

 unction to his soul that the winner is something out of 

 the common, has extraordinary speed, chopped his 

 field, that his own horse did not get off, was shut in 

 or in some way the victim of accident. Once more he 

 tries his luck in moderate company ; and the truth, 

 which has in fact been actually plain all the while, has 

 to be recognised : he is a very bad horse. " We shall 

 have to put him in a selling race," is the verdict, and 

 in such a contest he figures. If beaten, he descends 

 still further to the selling handicap, and should he fail 

 even here his future becomes indefinite. If he is 

 believed to "look like jumping," he maybe claimed 

 and tried at hurdles ; if not, some one may pick him 

 up at auction for a hunter, a hack or a cab — one may 

 be dragged down Piccadilly by an animal whose name 



