SPORT AND SPORTSMEN ON THE FRENCH COAST. 281 



and one of the French sporting papers — there 

 are many, Le Sport, Le Sportsman, Le Jocliey, 

 Le Derby, and others — has a long account of the 

 importance of this Grand Criterium, and can 

 only liken it to the famous Epsom race which 

 christens one of the journals just mentioned ; 

 which, seeing that it is for two-year-olds, is not 

 a very good shot. Nothing could be more 

 amusing to a racing man than to hear the 

 remarkable "explanations" which some of the 

 gallant Frenchmen on the stand give the ladies 

 who are with them as to the why and wherefore 

 of the business which precedes a race, the 

 weighing, etc., and I am sure that twenty-nine 

 Frenchmen out of thirty who go to races know 

 more about Chaldean manuscripts than about 

 the elementary principles of handicapping. 



Petitsinge, however, as I learn later on when 

 preparations for a Course de Haies a Beclaimer 

 — a Selling Hurdle Race — are in progress, 

 actually has views, which, briefly expressed, are 

 to the effect that the present system of weighting 

 horses is absurd, because they carry light 

 weights to go a thousand metres, little more 

 than half a mile, and heavy weights to go three 

 or four miles in a steeplechase, where there are 

 des obstacles. 



One good thing about this racecourse is that 



