HANDICAPPING SYSTEM

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 4, 5 January 1934, Page 10

HANDICAPPING SYSTEM

FAVOURS GOOD HORSES.

MANY OWNEKS DISSATISFIED,

If ever evidence was required to prove that the so-called handicapping of horses by what is near enough to a lixed system of penalties is (Unsatisfactory, it was supplied at the Auckland Trotting Club's summer meeting. Ever since the system was brought into operation instances ot horses having races presented to them have continually ■ cropped up, but though those in control ot' the sport have since been tinkering with the system very little improvement has been ellectcd, and the handicapping (?) of trotters and pacers is just as farcical to-day as it was when the system was first introduced. The writer has always boon against any fixed system of penalising horses, because any system which docs hot give all horses the same chances of winning is unfair. It is all very well to hold that a man who is fortunate enough to get hold of a good young horse should be able to win good money, but that is no reason why races should bo literally presented to him and other owners be expected to start tfyeir horses, knowing that, barring accidents, they have 110 possible chance of winning. There is one, and one way only, to handi-1 cap, and it is to assess horses so that all have equal prospects. If there are a dozeu horses nominated for a race the task of the handicapper is to try to bring about a dead-heat of the dozen. Of course, he cannot be expected to do that, but that should bo his objective. Owners are good sports; were they not the trotting sport in some places would have collapsed soon after the system came into operation. If only those owners who honestly believed their horses had good prospects of winning patronised a meeting, and those who knew their horses had no chance at all remained away, the present handicapping system would not last another month. It is only the knowledge gained from past experience that horses are not machines, and do not always race as expected, that make owners optimists. Under the old system, when horses were handicapped according to their form, the racing was equally as good and possibly more interesting than it is now. Horses won in their turn, the dividends were better, because the range of betting was wider, and there were not nearly so many "certainties" as under the present system. In their own interests it is up to those clubs whose meetings are being affected to get together and move to have the present system scrapped and a return made to the old method—the method which is not only fair to all, but gives every horse a chance to win.