LIGHT WEIGHTS WITH WEIGHT UP

Otago Witness, Issue 2394, 18 January 1900, Page 44

LIGHT WEIGHTS WITH WEIGHT UP

There has been some discussion lately in Australia about the wisdom or otherwise of allowing light boys to ride over jumps, and '■■Reginald" thus chips in: V\ 7 hilo having no desire just now to enter into the age or experience side of the argument, one can. without straying altogether from the main subject, say a word or two about dead weight. When a youngster of, =ay, 7.0 is put on a horse carrying, sny, 11.0, the difference between the boy and tlie allotted weight must bo made U& ffi^ saddle,, cloUiSj, etc. With, so

much dead weight remaining a fixture on the animal's back, it is reasonable to suppose that the horse's chance would not be' improved thereby. Yet we have instances, and plenty of them, through the season to show that the "ballast" can be carried successfully when laiecly contributed to by lead. Some owners would prefer having the weight in the rider rather than some considerable part of it in " make up " ; but, really, when dead weight is neatly and securely adjusted, fixed so that it cannot shift or "roll," it is not felt any more by the horse under it than if the rider did the weight with the aid only of a comfortable saddle. Of course, there is a right way and a wrong way of doing everything, and dead weight, imperfectly placed, must be detrimental to both the horse and his pilot. A solid lead saddle cannot possibly afford as comfortable a seat as the ordinary leathern article, but a littln use makes the difference so slight that it scarcely counts at all. On the day he won the Caulfield Grand National on Daimio, James Barbour's bodily weight was about 8.5. Daimio had to put up 13.3, so here was a shortage of nearly 5.0 to make up. Daimio got there just" the same. J. S. Edge must have used a tremendous amount of lead when he rode Nilus, 14.10, in the Steeule at Caulfield some months ago, yet the Glorious gelding ran one of the best races of his life that afternoon. The late P. M'Gowan was very light when he used to ride big weights over obstacles, and a present day instance of the same kind is provided in the case of George Burghall, an all-round horseman, who can go as low as about 7.4-. Dead weight in quantities is, of course, more common over jumps than on the flat, but still there are plenty of examples of it in the latter e'epartment also. Tommy Brown, then one of our leading lightweights, was only about 6.10 when he won the Hobart Cup on Duration, whose handicap was 10.10, and Gorry was winning Derbies before he had passed the feather-weight stage. Scores of other similar cases could be quoted, and, judging by results, it looks as though dead weight cannot be counted as against the chance of a horse who has to carry it.