90 A MIRROR OF THE TURF. 



please all who enter their horses in any given' 

 race ; consequently, when a handicap is published 

 there is very often a loud chorus of disappointment. 

 One owner compares the heavy weight assigned to 

 his horse with the light weight bestowed on some 

 other animal which has beaten it. Owners, dis- 

 satisfied with the work of this official, sometimes 

 strike their horses out of the race, without waiting 

 till the date when the acceptances have to be 

 declared, which is altogether a mistaken policy. 

 It very often happens that the views of the 

 handicapper are triumphantly endorsed by the 

 result of the race, when two or three of the 

 horses carrying the heaviest imposts of the 

 handicap will make a bolder bid for victory 

 than any of the other animals, the honours of 

 the race falling, perhaps, to the horse which carries 

 the top weight. Handicappers, "it is said," are 

 occasionally " got at," with the result that some 

 well-planned coup is brought off, in which a horse 

 carrying a light impost, by favour of the official 

 in question, is declared the winner. 



Persons who have long been behind the scenes 

 of the racing arena could doubtless relate many 

 stories of the kind indicated, and as handicappers, 

 like other men, are bung-full of human nature, it 

 is not to be wondered at if, being sorely tempted, 

 they sometimes fall. But at the present time the 

 official in question is more often a victim of some 

 other man's crime than a criminal himself. Handi- 

 cappers are born to be deceived. They form a 

 target for owners to shoot their arrows at, if such a 

 simile is applicable ; horses are run in all fashions 

 in order to deceive them, and frequently with 

 success. 



