492 



A H1STORV OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



Out of 289 occasions on which - a list of candidates was noted down by the expert I 

 have just quoted, he found that he had "placed" 190 horses first in order of supposed 

 merit, to which, after further consideration, he had allotted the top weights ; and that 

 in 99 cases his first impressions had been altered by subsequent knowledge as to age, 

 or performances, or subsidiary conditions. That is a fair example of the amount of 

 experience a handicapper should have before he really gets into harness at all for the 

 three or four hours' hard work an average handicap must entail, when there is no 

 specially confusing puzzle in racing form to elucidate. Each horse in a high-class 

 handicap like the Lincolnshire must involve looking up about fifteen races to 

 ascertain what he has done himself, and what the horses he has beaten have also 



done. Even after the 

 most careful research 

 there must be a margin 

 in which the guesswork 

 of the average man, and 

 the experience of the 

 skilful handicapper, are 

 left unaided. And that 

 is why the handicapper 

 must start his work upon 

 a good foundation of 

 knowledge, not of horses 

 only, but of human nature 

 too, and must also have 

 the courage to acquire 



more knowledge by an occasional mistake. It is now impossible to have even 

 so complete a view of racing as was possible to Admiral Rous. Leonardo da 

 Vinci could resume within his own brain nearly all the knowledge of the early 

 sixteenth century. - The greatest hall in the Hotel Cecil could scarcely hold 

 the army of contributors considered necessary to sketch the outlines of the 

 progress of the later nineteenth. And racing has expanded in a scarcely less 

 degree. Yet we see no authoritatively co-ordinated attempt to systematise the 

 knowledge of various handicappers in different parts of the country by means of 

 official and centralised reports to which each licensed handicapper could have 

 access. On the contrary, when any nominator or owner feels aggrieved, he may 



" Teddington " by " Orlando " (1848). 



