The only time handicapping becomes an issue is when you have a TD that has his horses under-rated so he can steal the tournament.
Have a "council" of neutral people to determine the handicaps and it a winner (maybe retired players that know everyone). I have also had success by polling the players at my player meetings.
Ray
I completely agree with you Ray. Handicapping is tough though, because there are plenty of BCA Masters caliber players around here that are playing in the open, and vise versa. I honestly think handicapping is too much of a hassle, but I'm just giving ideas to get more people wanting to play in the big tournaments. When you start handicapping whats to stop an unknown out-of-towner from coming in an robbing?
The bottom line is, if you want more local players, raising the entry isn't going to get you there, but I understand that if you want the big guns there has to be big pay outs involved also. Is there a happy medium...?