Each runner sits on a horse, and at a signal from the starter the horses start running for the goal, some fifty feet away. All the runner has to do is to “sit tight” and, if possible, keep his horse from going down flat, for it surely is not the horse who gets the worst of that possible episode! They must return to the starting point, and if the relay plan is used, touch off the next horse and his rider, who must run the same course.
The Baby Carriage Contest.
If possible get two or three obsolete baby carriages, each carriage to be manned by a boy and a man. The boy is the rider of course, but if it is possible to find a man small enough to ride in the carriage without totally demolishing it, substitute this small man for the boy, for nothing looks funnier than a grown up man scrunched down into a baby carriage, with his feet dangling overboard!
The race is just like any other race, to a goal and return, except that it is harder to look at without hurting one’s self!
The Rollers.
“Whoops” under “Races” may be used at a picnic for a woman’s race. Another race, run on the same principle, uses automobile tires as the thing to be rolled by hand, men, of course, being contestants.
Hardboiled eggs too, make wonderful “rollers,” and should be rolled to the goal and return by means of lead pencils or hairpins.
The Sack Race.
Just the plain old-fashioned sack race, in which contestants have both legs in a sack and must run to the goal and return, thus impeded. Excitement is added if the relay plan is used, whereby each runner must, on returning to the starting point, take off his sack and give it to the other runner of his team! When one is in a hurry that is a very easy thing to do!