OLD-TIME RACING.

Otago Witness, Issue 2842, 2 September 1908, Page 54

OLD-TIME RACING.

There is always a lot of quaint information to be derived, and a number of curir ous things to be learned, from, an old copy of the Racing Calendar:, and the other day a friend kindly lent me some volumes of Reginald Heber's " Historical List of Horse-matches Run" (the records of 1753), which was the original calendar to all | intents and purposes. We are so used to 1 having results up on the tape within a minute or two of the finish, and readingwhat has won. in "die papers which pour so rapidly from the press, that it is hard , to realise what racing was like when a j man in London who was interested in a ' horse running on some distant course very ' likely did not know for a. day or two how j hie fancy had fared. I am not posted j in the history of pigeons as messengers, < but have an idea that they were not employed till long after Mr Heber had laboriously compiled his volumes; and f even . after these winged messengers had been pressed into service the distribution of tbe news they brought must have been a business which took a very long time. A' feature of old-world racing wa« the I minuteness with which weight for inches was calculated. Evidently ponies ran | against horses in the middle of the i eighteenth century, for in what were called Give and Take Plates "from 12 to 15 hands high" was the margin, which seems to suggest that nothing- over the latter height was regarded as- likely to appear; and it io> to be deduced from this that horses have grown- to a remarkable extent, for we have all seen 17-handers and not 'a. few animal* scarcely short of that dimension. Tn the weight-for-height scale half-ounces were taken into consideration. Twelve-hand ponies carried sst, those of hall a quarter of an inch more an additional 14oz, 12 hands and a quarter of lan inch sst , lib 13oz, and so on. The

Mannings of an -earlier day had their work cut out for them when' if came to ounces ! They had to niggle with fractions, it will be seen. Thus a " horse " of " thirteen

hands three inches three-quarters and half a quarter" carried Bst 131b 2oz. So the scale ascended to 15 nands, llet. When the rulers of racing were- so strict about

the minutiae of weight, it might be supposed that they were equally strict as to other matters; but this can hardly hav<> been the case, for in the conditions of sport at Black Hambleton, Yorkshire,

May, 1753, it ie expressly specified: that "Crossing and Jostling is allowed' at this JPlaoe between the two first Horses." This oafeiot fail to strike the reader as an amazing license. What could be the good of a couple of ounces more or less when one horse was permitted by the rules to bump another; and when we talk of a bump we probably employ a ridiculously inadequate term, -rtf one man could knock another altogether out of it he was evidently quite within his rights. Race-

riding must have been a roughish business. It was bad for the horses that had to waity I have no idea whether the authorities had any desire to prevent slow-run races, but evidently the thing to do was to jump off in front, if you could, and keep "there. Then you could- not be interfered with; whereas if you waited behind I suppose you would find something waiting to stop you. It is really almost incredible that suoh riding should ever have been allowed, for think what it meant! Four or five horses might start for a heat ;

one with any amount in hand. A couple of the competitors could be told off to take care of the good thing — one on one side, one on the other — and they 'would ©imply devote themselves to - knocking him over, while the animal for whom the jockeys were going had a fair field — from one point of view — and any amount of favour.