Bredin on Running & Training

94 RUNNING AND TRAINING. intention of aiding the handicappers ; if so, it no doubt had the desired effect. If the holders of all the championships were respectively the best amateurs in England, the theory, at any rate, was commendable; but so frequently is this not the case that, under certain conditions, a race might appear on the programme with the amateur champion for the year on scratch, and another runner, who had not competed at the annual A. A. A. meeting, owing a certain number of yards. Should the governing body wish to prevent handi– capped races being constantly run in times which give the scratch man and back markers no reasonable chance, this could, perhaps, be effected by their passing a law that the handicapper in each event must state on the programme what time he had framed his handicap for. But a better plan seems to me to be practicable by framing all handicaps from the amateur record at each distance. This would be reverting to the pro– fessional system to a certain degree, which was once tried and subsequently rejected in amateur athletics. One of the principal objections to it was held to be that a man close to scratch might compete a few yards short of the full amount in so fast a time that the record might have been equalled or lowered had this runner started from actual scratch. In no handicap can this be altogether prevented, however, under any system. If A, being scratch man in a 200 yards handicap and holder of the record of 19g sees., yet little superior to B, to whom he has to concede two yards start, and if this race is decided in 19i sees. with B the wmner, then, although B could lay I