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Some Aspects of Handicapping By SALVATOR That handicap races rule the American turf is merely stating a fact that has become n notorious notoriousWe We now have in effect but three different It kinds of races in the American turf scheme 1 Tcwit Those for horses of specific ages namely two or threeyearolds handicaps a and claiming races racesOf Of these claiming events form the bulk of ° our programs but are the most negligible item in reality as they are as a rule the v vehicles for racing the hoi polio of thorough ¬ b breds They dominate in mere bulk but in ii importance they occupy a position exactly i the reverse reverseRaces Races for two and threeyearolds are g supposedly vehicles for bringing them to ¬ g gether on the parity of age But that which o once was the case has become almost y wholly a fiction Only a small percentage of the stake events or the purse races in this d department are what might be termed straight ones Nine out of ten of them are s so conditioned that they bear little resem ¬ blance to their original prototypes Actually 1 if not avowedly they are handicaps They handicapsThey are in effect handicaps just as arc i nine out of ten or to speak more correctly E 99 out of 100 of the events given for the all z aged division They arc not called handicaps but that is what they really are areEven Even the claiming races are in many in ¬ E stances really handicaps When analyzed J and boiled down that is what they come to toWhen When such a condition becomes general it is bound to lead to abuses And such today are to be seen on every hand in our racing scheme This being due to the fact that a good handicapper is rare and a great one a l phenomenon phenomenonREAL REAL DEFINITION DEFINITIONIn In the connection it should be understood that the name handicapper is used in the only correct manner namely to designate a man i who assigns the weights to be carried by race horses as his official function It is I NOT to be understood as meaning a truck driver or a kitchen mechanic who is trying to decide whether to bet on Umph the Gump or Lobelia McFlanagan in the next race j The difficulties of successful handicapping I increase the higher we go in the grades of the horses that are assigned weights The i ordinary plater that makes up the bulk of our racing material is an animal of limited capacity and speaking by and large can be handled on that basis The capabilities of jwhat we may call stake horses are much a task of much greater complexity and range is inevitable inevitableThe The greatest of all handicappers W S Vosburgh has very recently passed away after four years of retirement from the labors of a lifetime But he has left behind him some of his maxims and opinions about the basis of his lifewark the expressions of his ideas and convictions gathered from an unequalled experience in his profession Among professionAmong his utterances none was more worthy of heed than the following followingOUTGROWN OUTGROWN WEIGHT SCALE SCALEI I think we have outgrown the weight scale and that it is unfair to the older 1 horses Horses are raced harder today than they were when it was adopted By the time they are say five years old much of Hheir 1 racing power has been taken out of them Under the scale they must concede weight to younger horses although their powers are waning It is unfair unfairThis This utterance dates back precisely ten years having been made in the Spring of 1928 In the decade that has since elapsed many changes have taken place and all are 1 of such a nature as to redouble its weight and pertinency For if our horses were being raced harder ten years ago than formerly they are now being raced much harder than they were ten years ago The rise of the winter meetings has occurred since then Now our very best horses are being raced twelve months in the year and have no let ¬ up in many instances from January first to December thirtyfirst thirtyfirstThe The older a horse gets the more pressing ly this condition bears upon him In con ¬ sequence its unfairness to him which Mr Vosburgh pointed out is apparent For all handicappers invariably retreat upon the weightscale and use it at once as a measur ¬ ing stick and a scapegoat scapegoatMEANT MEANT THREEYEAKOLDS THREEYEAKOLDSIn In former times twoyearolds frequently raced against older horses in what were known as events for allaged animals Such events no longer exist as the juveniles have been banned from them In conse ¬ quence when Mr Vosburgh spoke of the younger horses to which the older ones must make unfair concessions what he meant was really the threeyearolds which are the youngest horses that today compete in the great handicaps They are in fact specifically framed for threeyearolds and upwards upwardsThis This being so it is interesting to point out two very conspicuous cases of great han ¬ dicaps of the present season in which an older horse long and hardly raced was called upon to make enormous concessions to the threeyearolds and failed to do so be ¬ cause it was a physical impossibility It is somewhat singular also that the same horse was the beaten one in both cases casesIn In the Santa Anita Handicap 100000 added run on March 5 the fiveyearold Seabiscuit which had previously run sev ¬ entyfour races was asked to carry 130 pounds and the threeyearold Stagehand which had previously run thirteen races just 100 pounds Only the week previously Stagehand had won a sensational race over a route only a furlong shorter than that of the 100000 one under 118 pounds in ex ¬ tremely fast time It was among the dispas ¬ sionate almost a foregone conclusion that Seabiscuit could not concede thirty pounds to such an opponent and in the race he proved unable to toSANTA SANTA ANITA HANDICAP HANDICAPAs As stated previous to the Santa Anita Handicap Seabiscuit had run some seventy four races He has been in training ever since and on October 15 was a starter for the Laurel Stakes at Laurel Park one of the most important of the late Fall events of its class This was not technically a handicap It is what is called nowadays an allowance race That is to si the starters were car ¬ rying weightforage according to the weightscale with allowances During the interim Seabiscuit had increased his total number of starts to no less than eightytwo Under the conditions of the stake he was called poundsIn upon to carry 126 pounds In the field was the threeyearold filly Jacola By many critics she was rated the best twoyearold of her sex seen in 1937 when she won the rich Selima Stakes and other races This season she had been re ¬ served for the late Fall campaign and pre ¬ vious to the Laurel Stakes had run three times winning twice and second on the other occasion This brought her total number of starts previous to the Laurel Stakes up to fourteen as against Seabiscuits eightytwo The Laurel Stakes was at one mile In her first race of this fall Jacola had won at that distance and carried 111 pounds in the fast time of 136 without being ridden out and by a margin of three lengths She was let into the Laurel Stakes at but 102 pounds requiring Seabiscuit to concede her twenty four pounds It was apparent that this was an impos sibility and so it proved Jacola beat Sea biscuit with comparative ease and broke the Laurel track record for one mile run ¬ ning the distance in 137 137Such Such facts as these illustrate the truth and cogency of Mr Vosburghs contentions reproduced above
