SPORTING NOTES.

(By "Sir Single.")

Matters are fairly quiet on the local tracks, though a number of horses are being kept into the collar with a view to events at Marton at the opening of the coming racing season. It is expected that the Hawera contingent for the Marton gathering will be a fairly numerous one. Hawera trained horses engaged at the Grand National meeting have • Vwidy gone to Riccarton. J. Fryer left with Bercoia and the hunter Kapuni on Tuesday, and P. Coffey took Ngatiruamii down after the Wellington neeting. Bismarck ran his last race at the Trentham meeting and was then, I un derstand, given by Mr Stanford to Mr E. Mason, a Stratford veterinary surgeon, who will use him as a hack and hunter—and a more pleasant hack than the Uhlan gelding is to ride no man could wish to throw a leg over. Grattan, who was added to the list a bit ago, came through the ordeal all right and is still quartered at Tom Pine's establishment. A half-brother by Coronet to Zion is shortly to join Pine's team, and will race in the same interests as Zion. Red Line, who was eased up after the Otaki meeting, is again in .ommission. The Stepson gelding Tirohanga, now an inmate of Fryer's stable, has lately been schooled over hurdles and shi-pes pretty well. The many friends of Mr R. H. Skipwith will be pleased to hear chat he expects to leave the private hospital in a few days, and will then take a short holiday in either Napier or Nelson. It was thought when Coolbeggan broke down in the Parliamentary Handicap that he had broken a leg, but latest advice states that the gelding was able to walk from the course to Upper Hiitt, and was railed home with the rest of Hickey's team. Danny Maher, the well-known jot key, has purchased a country house in England known as The Elms, with a goodsized holding of first-class arable and pasture land, about nine miles from Nottingham. He is going in for breeding pedigree Shorthorns, and recently one of his stock "carried off first prize at a Nottingham cattle show. ?T- A recent arrival from Sydney says that Captain Jingle was going nicely in the Grand Natonal Steeplechase at Flemington when he fell. It was on the flat that the Captain Webb geldaig came to grief; he tripped over a oatten knocked out of one of the fences. The sale of Craganour subsequent to his disqualification for the Derby adds another to the lis",- of high-priced horses purchased for the-Argentine. The purchaser^of *ljhe\ colt, who goes direct to J; the stud,' i.'Scrior Martinez de Hoz, a breeder on a large scale in the South American Republic, and the son of Desmond was to be forwarded to his new destination a month after the sale. The Argentine breeders are great buyers. The price paid for Craganour was £30,----000, which is the next highest figure to the £31,500 given for Diamond Jubilee, who also went to the Republic, as did the French colt Jardy (£30,000), Cyllene (£25,000), Val dOr (£28,000), and Polar Star <£18,900). B. Deeley is at the head of successful horsemen on the flat for the second year in succession. His total (61) is much below his total of the previous year, 88. C. Emmerson <55), "Oliver (50), and L. Wilson (42) come next. In hurdle races and steeplechases, A. = J. McFlynn again heads the list -with 15 wins, the same number as in -the previous season. J. CConneTl (14), W. Adams (__*., and F. Flynn ((lb): come next on the list. "Vigilant,", of the London .Sports"";T__ man, reckons the French .colt Nimbus was unlucky not to hav.e sM>n the :_e-; cent English I>erby... He states thatNimbus was so hadly interfered w-iflr when Anme'r fell )_hat "he -was' vopwards \ .of fifty yardsbeitmft -thelea_t_cs (enter-; iing the straight, wras s'tiTl six lengths; ;»way commencing i__e Hast furlong, and : eventually finished Within a {length of the winner. Furthermore., Mm..us-was finishing so much faster than anything else that he would ha<ve won -in ja few: strides. Another eontrifautor to the paper mentioned says that Shsjgun would Jiave won with a clear run. Hoanga had to be destroyed at Wellington on account of breaking .a sxnail ihone in one of his legs. Hoanga was sent to Australia last year, and while there did well up to two and a half; miles. Since his return to the Dominion ha has not sported silk many times, but in Auckland last Easter won the Autumn Steeplechase. At the annual xneeting of the Otaki Maori Racing Club.sit was reported that all guarantors had b#en paid (if, and a profit of over £1000 jnade from the last meeting. It was decided to effect j--.A. & number of improvements at the t course in time for the coming' meeting. When Guncap fell in the Gr^nd National Steeplechase at Flemingto/1) be lay so still that he was thought to be dead. Some of the spectators helpeu 1 themselves to pieces of his mane and

tail, as mementos of the old horse, and were astonished when G uncap struggled to his feet a few minutes later. He had been bac1" tinned. An Engl. -ortsman, Mr H. S. Goodson, laid £60U to £300 cash against Craganour in the recent Derby, and handed the £900 over to the backer before it was known that Craganour had been objected to by the stewards and • subsequently disqualified. Mr Goodson has had the money restored to him since, and, by way of marking his appreciation of the layer, gave £100 back as "luck penny," says the London Sportsman. An honest settlement on the one side, and a pretty and substantial acknowledgement on the other. The Fordell trainer F. Tilley has won thirty-two races this season, and, with the exception of Equitas in the Champion Plate, the whole of them have been won since Christmas. The English Derby winner, Aboyeur, was one of three yearlings purchased by Mr Cunliffe for a lump sum of £2200. Los Angelos is being given schooling, lessons over the small fences at Porirua, buT, so far, he has not shown any partiality for the business, and, in his second essay, he had a fall. The Manawatu Racing Club has voted £15 15s towards the Manawatu Hunt Club meeting on August 6, and the use of the Awapuni racecourse for that date has been given free of charge. The purchase of Kilrain was completed recently, and the bay horse goes into J. W. Lowe's stable after the Grand National meeting, where he is engaged in the Winter Cup. His new owner is Mr Eric Riddiford, and the price paid is said to be 500 guineas. Mr D. W. Gibson, who has resigned his appointment as a stipendiary steward, will leave Christchurch on his return to Australia at the end of next month. "Dug" Watt, a3 he was generally known, whose death at his own hands was reported from Hastings recently, was well-known among racing men a year or two back as a capable horseman over country. Two of his principle flat race victories were the Wellington Cup on Brooklet and the Napier Cup on Pinrose. On Jack Pot and Moifaa' he won the Hawke's Bay Steeplechase, and was also up on the last mentioned when the son of Natator—Denbigh won the Wanganui and Great Northern Steeplechases. The brood mare La Valiere, dam of Los Angelos and Guianforte, died at the Brackenfield stud recently, while in foal to Boniform, La Valiere, who was bred by Messrs L. D. and N. A. Nathan in 1899, being by Seaton Delaval—Charente, had rather an unfortunate stud career. She only missed once since foaling Los Angelos in 1904. Yet that good performer and Guianforte and the coming two-year-old filly Los Vegas, by Boniform, are her only living progeny. For the racing season 1912-1913 the defunct Soult again headed the list of winning sires with a total of £20,685, won by 48 of his progeny. The chief contributors to this were Bleriot £2350, Soltano £2190, La Reina £1945, Mira £1295, Jolie Fille £1245, Kakama £1075, and Labour Day £1060. Birkenhead occupies second place, 39 representatives having credited him with £8956 in winnings and place-money. Martian (22 winners), £7207 ; Boniform (9 winners), £7032; Charlemagne 11. (22 winners), £6108; Treadmill (13 winners), £5791 come next in order. In the New Zealand Referee "An English Visitor" makes the following remarks in reference to jockeyship in New Zealand:—"lt might almost be said of present-day New Zealand jockeys that thjfy have but little chance, under modern conditions, of acquiring the art of ideal jockeyship. In England they live the life that kills, and they seem to drift into a procedure of recklessness to the exclusion of sober discrimination. It is this recklessness that inspires them in the race for home. In England we see an inexperienced apprentice win a, couple of races, with the advantage of his 51b allowance, and he is forthwith placed ;upon a pedestal of fame—a Maher in •embryo. I wonder if the same 'Oraer of things exists in New Zealand ? Fi ora what I could gather of the quality of .jockeyship during my visit to Tbenrtham I fear that the jockey's desire 'to assume the American seat is largely responsible for the lack of finish .and •decadence (so palpably obvious to one from England) among the colonial viders generally. The question now. ttiiises, "Is -the American seat success-j ixt\ In steeplechasing?" I say "No!": In _ay opinion it is the Yankee style ] that has to answer for many falls. ■ I remember many instances during -the j last three years, when the steeplechases! in England, by reason of the number of falls, due to exceptionally high fences, \ have been described in the newspapers j a 6 ludicrous. The fences here are mere; wheelbarrows in ccmparison to the majority of those at H^-tfe. It is my con-' tention that the steX3s»lechase jockeys ) here have adopted the Yankee seat so as to be "in the swim/ They lift their weight as much as possible off the horse's back, and thus they do not ride their horses at the fenO^P as they ought to do. It does not pay in steeplechasing, and the sooner they adopt the straight stirrup the better for both horse and rider. It is absurd to say it helps the horse. May be it does in flat racing, but not "over the sticks." No | aspersions are intended against any'

particular jockey. Since the seat, or what is very much like it, has been introduced in steeplechasing, jumping sport has not been so popular. I have always believed that a horse with his jockey sitting forward does not realise that he is at a fence till he finds himself under it; then it is too late to get over. If a horse does get over a fence, but blunders in landing, the jockey cannot, with celerity, help him to recover."