The hurdle-racer must, as we have seen, have a light foot, and so he is rarely a heavy man, but he must also have a strong back and thighs, so as to take his spring and his fresh start without any pause. Thus he is always one who runs in a springy' style, but a good high jumper is rarely of any use as hurdler, as he has a natural inclination to jump too high and waste time in his spring into the air. Hurdle-racing and long-jumping ability more often go together. Indeed, the main point in hurdle-racing is not to learn to jump well over the hurdle, but to learn not to jump too high. The best way to attain this is, in our opinion, to practise over hurdles the top bar of which is loose. It may seem a paradox, but we think it is true, that the runner can best learn by having no fear of coming to grief by crashing into the top bar. Upcher, of whom we have spoken, probably took as much care over his practice for hurdling as any man has ever done, and so fearful was he of getting into the habit of rising too high, that when he began, whether the hurdles had a loose top or not, he would crash through half-a-dozen of them, leaving a track of desolation behind him.

His shins certainly suffered in the performance, as he was in the habit sometimes of carefully bumping them against each hurdle to see that he was going all right. The hurdles at the Old Marston running-grounds at Oxford, over which so many cracks practised, had loose tops which came off when struck by the leg, but recently the Oxonians have practised over ordinary hurdles, it being thought by some that the 'loose-top' system encouraged rashness, and led to catastrophes at Lillie Bridge.

A HURDLE RACE.

The beginner always finds himself unable to do the regulation 'three stride' with any success over hurdles of full height, and either has to practise over low ones placed the proper ten yards apart, or to slope the obstacles forward so as to make the height less and the jumping more easy. The secret of success lies more in assiduous practice than in anything else. Probably any athlete with fair abilities at sprinting and long jumping can with practice make himself a good hurdler if he be not too heavy-footed, and so unable to recover from the spring. The really brilliant hurdler, however, is always a clean-built man with little weight at the buttocks to drag him backward, and the heavy-weight sprinters who try hurdling are usually failures. Some of the best hurdlers have been small men who have found their natural stride long enough for the three-stride system, while a man with too long a natural stride can hardly reduce it with success. Great strength of back is naturally required for the rise to the hurdle, and the hurdler not only needs assiduous practice, but must come to the post very fit and without a trace of stiffness.

As regards the amount of exercise and practice, he must train in much the same style as the sprinter, taking great care over starts and spurts on the flat in addition to his daily spin over the timber. We need scarcely say that it is not in the least necessary to cover the full distance every day in practice. The hurdler probably benefits quite as much as the sprinter by the rubbing process which we have before described.

Hurdle-racing is undoubtedly more popular at the Universities than anywhere else. The University element in London brought the sport forward in the metropolis very early, but until quite recently it was very rare to find a good hurdler, except from Oxford or Cambridge. It is not too much to say, indeed, that only two first-class hurdlers have hailed from London - Reay and Lockton1 - and hardly any of note from any other part of the country except Nottingham, which of late years has been quite a centre of hurdling ability. After all it is hardly surprising that hurdlers should only be found in a few places, for the sport cannot well flourish in any locality where there are not great facilities for its practice.

1 It is difficult to class Godfrey Shaw the best English hurdler between 1891 and 1893. He was first at Cambridge, then in New Zealand, finally in London.

The first champion at the 120 yards hurdle race was a. Cambridge man, T. Milvain, a gentleman who has since passed the post first in several contested parliamentary elections at Durham. The third man in the race was C. N. Jackson, the well-known treasurer of the O.U.A.C., and also treasurer of the A.A.A. since its foundation. Of Mr. Jackson's services to the cause of athletic sport at Oxford, as well as elsewhere, it is almost unnecessary to speak, but his reputation as a hurdler while he was still an active athlete may fitly be mentioned. In the year 1867 Jackson was the winner of the Oxford and Cambridge hurdle race, and but for a conty-etemps would, no doubt, have been champion in that year as well. In his heat he disposed of Milvain with great ease, but in the succeeding attempt there was a dead heat between R. Fitzherbert, of Cambridge, and J. B. Martin (the present president of the London A.C.). The result was that a fifth hurdle was added in the final heat, upon some ground which, we believe, had not even been mown. In the draw for places Jackson unluckily found the rough ground allotted to him. and was unable to make any show in the race.

His great performance, however, had been done previously in the autumn of 1865, when he covered the distance in what is still the record time - 16 seconds. Jackson was a strongly-built light weight of rather over medium height, the most successful type of hurdle-racer. In 1868 and 1869 the championship went away from the Universities, falling in the former year to W. M. Tennant, of Liverpool, the sprinter, and in the latter year to G. R. Nunn. of Guy's Hospital. In 1870, however, with J. L. Stirling, of Cambridge, began the long line of University cracks which has continued almost without interruption until the present time. Stirling made his first and only appearance at the Oxford and Cambridge Sports in 1870, when he won with ridiculous ease by half-a-dozen yards, in 16 3/5- seconds. In the same year he won the championship, a performance which he repeated in 1872. He was, we believe, never defeated in a hurdle race, and, if our recollection is right, was a taller and heavier man than the successful hurdler usually is. He ran also in a style somewhat different from that of many of his precursors, his right leg not being doubled back at all, but hanging behind him, as he strode clean over the hurdle.