How did the word handicap come around in the world of horse racing?

Question

Where did the word come from.......not what does it mean

Answer 1

The word handicap means "to put at a disadvantage".

As has already been explained, horses are alloted weight in handicap races according to their ability, therefore the better horses carry more weight. The point is to try and make all horses in a race run to the same level.

In most other races, all horses will run off the same weight, although fillies get a weight allowance from colts as they are usually smaller and in mixed age group races the younger horses get a weight allowance from the older horses.

Addition:

You need to be more specific in what you want to know! Try this link for more of an explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicapping

Answer 2

There have been some good answers given. However, a handicap race is always in the hand of the racing secretary at a particular track to assign the weights and they have been known to favor certain horses with realtively light weight assigbnments to get them to run.

Answer 3

Better horses were handicapped to favour the lesser horses so that it was better gambling. The faster they went the higher they were handicapped (given extra weight to carry).