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, ; EARLY WEIGHTS FOR RAGING Astonishing Scale Adjustment in Racing of England Handicapping Growth. It is not known in England when handicapping was first applied to thoroughbred racing, though such a method appears natural when horses of varied quality meet. Before handicaps the early weight for age scale was an amazing and impossible method of leveling racing ability. We are told that in the beginning and middle of the eighteenth century, up to about 17110, the difference in weight of horses of various ages was generally ealcnlated at the rate of a stone, that is foiiVleen English pounds, per year: for instance, four years old, 12i! pounds; ft years old. 140 pounds; six years old, 154 pounds; older horses, 108 pounds. The idea of an aged horse giving a siv-year-old fourteen pounds suggests that it must, have been an extraordinarily good aged animal which" won. After the dale mimed some obviously needful alterations were made; and it appears that over the Beacon course of four miles four-year-olds carried" eighty-five pounds; five-year-olds, lit! pounds; six-year-olds, 130 itounds, and it had been recognized that the aged horses were previously too se-, yerely taxed, for they were now asked to give tea pounds, which the following year was reduced to seven pounds. The period of the. season when these weights were carried is not stated, and that is important. Tho poor old horses were gradually treated more reasonably, and over two miles at Newmarket in 17b5 they were- only . set td. give six-ycar.-.olds a couple of pounds. At the beginning ;of the nineteenth century, in 1S0O;. further variations were, made; indeed, something like a handicap" seems, to be gradually forming itself. We find, for in-. stance, four-year-old! giving from seven pounds to fifteen pounds to three-year-olds, six-year-olds giving from four pounds to ten pounds to those im-; mediately junior. In 1S50 an aged horse gave a six-year-old cither one pound or nothing.
