254 THE ENGLISH TURF 



That there has been a scarcity of good light-weights for 

 long enough cannot be disputed, but the fact is that there 

 are so many welter races nowadays that the light-weight is 

 not so much needed as he was when the handicaps went 

 down to 5 St. 7 lbs., and therefore he has been less in evidence. 

 The Stewards of the Jockey Club have realised the position, 

 hence the new rule providing for at least one apprentices' 

 race per year on all courses where four days' racing are held 

 annually, with exceptions, and the subsequent extension of 

 the 5-lb. allowance to handicaps as well as to selling races. 

 I was glad to see these innovations introduced, for it is 

 pitiful to contemplate that more races are nowadays lost 

 through the incompetence of the light-weights than was the 

 case when the scale was lower. In this connection I have 

 often thought that the weights for some of the two-year-old 

 races in the early spring might well be lowered. As it is, 

 two-year-olds carry 9 st. and 8 st. 11 lbs. in March, and if a 

 Brocklesby winner tries to follow up his success at North- 

 ampton or other adjacent meeting he has to put up within 

 4 lbs. of 10 St., which is, I venture to say, far too heavy a 

 burden for a two-year-old so early in the year. The 

 stewards, and indeed a majority of the Jockey Club, seem 

 anxious to relieve the strain of early two-year-old racing as 

 far as possible, and I would like to suggest to the Turf law- 

 givers that lowering the weights would do nearly as much 

 good as decreasing the value of the stakes. It is an anomaly 

 that five- and six-year-olds should frequently be set to carry 

 less than 7 st. in handicaps, and that horses who are barely 

 two years old in point of actual existence should begin 

 racing with 9 st, with the prospect for the winner of a heavy 

 penalty in its next race. 



Now that, in spite of uninformed or only too deliberate 

 opposition, the starting-gate has been introduced, the evil 

 that was so prevalent, of keeping the two-year-olds a quarter 

 of an hour or twenty minutes dancing about at the start 

 with heavy weights on their backs, has disappeared. This 

 was a very serious evil, and the irritation and confusion 

 caused in a young horse's mind by the perpetual starting 

 and pulling up that went on must have gone a long way 



