Athletics and Football (extract)

ATHLETIC MEETINGS 203 of handicaps, and for this it is indispensable that the handi- cappers chosen should be men up to their work. For the ' short limit' handicaps (which are such a success at the Civil Service meeting, and which we should like to see at every fixture, as they bring ' cracks' together, and yet prevent the same men from alwayswinning) the handicapping has to be equallya matter of care and study, as a yard more or lessmay make or mar a good race; and there is little danger, whenthere are none but well-known men competing, of all calculations being upset by the appearance of a 'dark horse.' So far, indeed, has specialism proceeded in the athletic art that at many meetingsthere are different handicappers for the long and short races. The professed handicapperskeep a book in which every man's performances are recorded, and their duties are certainly arduous, as to be exact in their calculations they have to get the best accounts of everyevent that has taken place in the country. It is not at all unusual for the athletes ofone district to take journeys into other districts, while some of the semi- professional amateurs flit about all over the kingdom picking up prizes. As soon as any athlete winsor is placed in a race his scale of start has to be reconsidered. About a decade ago the amateurs thought they could borrow with advantage a system employed by handicappers of pro­ fessional pedestrians of framingall the starts with reference to a fixed standard, and not with reference to the pace of the man whois the best of the entrants. Under this, whichis knownas the ' Sheffield system,' the standard fixed by the handicapper for 100 yards would be, say10 sec., or for the quarter 50 sec., and each competitor would be handicapped according to the number of yards he would be outside 10 sec. or 50 sec., as the case might be. The result necessarilywas that in nearly every case the best man in the handicap was not at ' scratch,' but at some yards start. The system, no doubt, had its ad­ vantages,for it saved the handicapper a good deal of trouble in readjusting all the starts for each race according to the varying abilityof the man at ' scratch.' There was also this