CHAPTER IX. 



Tlie principle of fixing or determining the weight 

 horses shall carry in races, refined by the term 

 "handicap," is, as everybody more or less knows, 

 founded on "estimate." That is to say, the best 

 opinion that can be arrived at of respective merit 

 derived from a study of relative form. 



How that opinion shall be arrived at, must neces- 

 sarily be open to question. Not in one direction 

 only, but in very many. What may be a horse's 

 merit, gauged by relative running with other 

 horses, must needs depend on a variety of circum- 

 stances in the result all more or less obscure. 



If races were run on a single course at prescribed 

 distances and on the level, assuming the ground not 

 to be liable to climatic change, it may be quite 



