OVERWEIGHT AND HANDICAPPING.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1378, 21 September 1916, Page 9

OVERWEIGHT AND HANDICAPPING.

There are good reasons why weights should be so fixed that owners can find riders without having to put up excess poundage. ft is rarely that horses win carrying overweight, but they often lose through having done so. At a recent meeting at Wagga, N.S.W., four winners . carried more than the allotments of the handicapper, which led to the following comment: —When a handicapper goes to the trouble of adjusting weight to the exact pound that should be productive of a dead-heat between various competitors, it must be somewhat galling when a horse with anything up to a stone over its correct impost wins in good style. The handicapper for the Wagga L.V. meeting last week had an experience of the kind, four races being won by competitors carrying considerably more than he allotted them. Muggabah won the Shorts Handicap with Sib. overweight, while the same afternoon Island Prince, with 14% lb. over, accounted for the Maiden Handicap, and Lady Anzac, 3% lb. over, was third in the same race. These results knocked handicapping figures to bits, but as both winners named were outsiders the handicapper at least had the satisfaction of knowing that the public regarded the prospects of Muggabah and Island Prince as hopeless with so many pounds more than their proper weight. Then on the second day Lacmalac carried 8 % lb. over when he pulled off the Presidents’ Handicap, and the Carnival Handicap winner, Waymea, put up 3% lb. over. Results such as these demonstrate that at times a handicapper’s lot is anything but a happy one, and should also be something of an object lesson to those people who have an idea that a horse should run no better or worse one week than another.

Teka, by Mystification from Tattle, a double winner at Pahiatua, is well named. Teka stands for Truth.