TIME IN RACES 281 



is absurd in England to compare the times made on 

 one race-course with those made on another. On the 

 Epsom 5 furlongs, for instance, they make world's 

 records every time, while on the Rous course at New- 

 market they never get under 60 seconds. Time is 

 valuable as a proof whether a race has been truly run or 

 not, and that is its great value in the case of a trial ; but 

 the one stumbling-block as regards time is that it shows 

 little or no difference between bad horses and good. 

 Thus, at Epsom, last spring we saw the Ashtead Selling 

 Plate won by Contact, over 6 furlongs, in i minute 

 94 seconds, while the next race, the Woodcote Stakes, 

 over the same distance, was won by Re-echo, who took 

 i minute 101 seconds to cover the course. The Selling 

 Plater, Far Isle, won the Ranmore Plate, 5 furlongs, 

 in 564 seconds, and this is within a fraction of record 

 even for Epsom. The same difficulty arises over timing 

 men. Thus the very best runners rarely make even time 

 for 100 yards, though it is quite common for even boys 

 at school to get within a fraction or two of that time, 

 and yet the real champion sprinters would run right 

 away from such boys were they to meet in a race. It 

 is difficult to account for this, for it is clear that, in this 

 last-mentioned contingency, either the champions would 

 make better time than they had ever done before or the 

 boys would make worse time than they had already 

 done. 



In the case of horses we face the same puzzle, and 

 though some races are difficult to time accurately, there 

 are very many that can be timed to a fraction, as, for 

 instance, the ij miles at Epsom, or the Doncaster St 

 Leger course. 



An element of uncertainty in timing English races is 



