IN A NUTSHELL.

—The Shannon is reported to be doing good •work at Hastings. — Porirua is said to a sure starter in tb.3 Auckland Cup and Derby. i — Mr T. Morterner purchased the hack racer , Little Bob at the Queenstown meeting. ; — Six to four against is the best on offer i about Siege Gun for the Auckland Cup. I — Up to date the list of foalings at Welling- j ton Park consist* of 15 colts and 10 fillies. | —T. O'Brien will ride Blazer and Battler in j their Wingatui engagements at the end of the ■ month. ! — The Melbourne Cup winner Clean Sweep ■wa3 on the £ale list when the last mail left England. — Acceptances and general entries for the D.J.C. summer meeting must be declared on ■ 3?riday next. ' — Pallas has arrived safely in Auckland, ana maintains hia place as first choice for the Railway Handicap. — The Victorian trainer J. E. Brewer contemplates making another trip to England with a team of horses. ! His Majesty King Edward VII -was present at each of the three days of the Newmarket , Houghton meeting. i — Advices from Auskland state that the "Wairiki stable strongly fancy their colt for the ' ▲.B.C. Railway Handicap. I — -Visidnary eorang one of her tendons on. the -first "day- of "the Queenstown meeting, and ■nrlll-h»ve to be^put by for some time. — Mr J-. -A. Jokastone, of the firm of Messrs "Wright, siepbenson, and Co., has donated £7 to - the funds of the JKurow Jockey Club. } f An. American pacer earned Prince -Alert - Tfttentiy stepped four furlongs in 575 sec, and established^, world!*, .record, ioi _tb.e_d~stance: j. — The Serf was auctioned during the progzess of the Queenstown meeting,, and was knocked down tcr Mr D. Richardson at £20. *Tn e stallion Thunderbolt (Musket — Locket) was sold at the dispersal of the Fulham Park »tud for 55gs. Thunderbolt was foaled in 1862. — At ti» dispersal of the Fulham Park Stud (South Australia), 41 lot 3 Tirere sold, realising a. total of 3186g5, or an average of Sogs per l«ad. ~ , I - — The Duke of Portlsmcl is advertising in the London Sportsman that he is desirous of celling his 12-gear-old St. Simon stallion Raeburn for eOOOgs. ' — The amount of money (£486) put through the totaltso-tor at the Queenstown meeting is probably a record (the best-worst) for a twodays' meeting. ' The American horseman D. Maher, woo nad just topped his century of, wins for the present seasoa^when the last mail left England, strained his majority on October 29. Queen of Trumps, who won a double at the Queenstown meeting, has only been broken in tjiree months, and is a lengthy mare of plenty of Eize. She is by Tiump Card out of Stock-flc-wer. — A correspondent informs me that .the first of the defunct Captive's stock sported silk at the Arrow meeting. This was Captive 11, who ran second in the Welter Hack Race -won by BencUmecr. —At the" Greenwich Park Trotting meeting, held" at Aintree (Ireland) on October 27, v sixfurlqng trotting race figured -on the card, and "the^winner.»-occupied 1.49 2-5 ;in covering the-s->rint course. • ; — Pekin, the half-brother by St. Simcn to the _ coloncr Castor, won the Sandown Foal Stakes of 172isovs, .mile five furlongs, from sis others on the second day of the Sandown Park autumn meeting. : — Lady Gertrude, the dam of Euroclydon, •will be represented by a Hotchkiss colt at the "Wellington Park yearling sales. Since she produced Blizzard in 1886, Lady Gertrude has missed once oaly. — The pony Vulpine, who b°at a fair field of horses in the Stanley Handicap on the second day of the Takapuna meeting, is by Reynard, , the son of Le Loud and Miss Kate, the dam of Prime Warden and Co. • — The stewards of "Ute English Jockey Club having convicted an individual of corruptly ' fcttempbing to obtain informat.on from persons having charge of racehorses, recently warned Lira off Newmarket Heath. — The last of the St. LcgeTS will go under the hammer at the Wellington Park yearling sales of January 3, in the- shape of a filly by the de- j funct Doncaater horse out of Simonias, a granddaughter of St. Simon. j — The death is reported o£ Materoa, the full■lster to The Shannon and Brooklet. The mare ] was being given a dose of oil, when some of the liquid ifound its way into her lunga, and she died shortly afterwards. I — When the crack filly Scep+re was placed i -under the hammer rec3ntly with a reserver on I her of 24,0Q0g5, she did not evoke a single ' bid. Buyers of thoroughbreds at that figure ■ do not wag their heads very frequently. j — Owing to the fact that only one entry was ' ruade, the weight-adjuster of the Wyndham > Jockey Club had the uniaue experience of handicapping one horse for the principal race on the first d»y of the forthcoming meeting t>J j the club. { — An inquiry is beiag made in Melbourne as to the identity of the trotting mare Nellie W., who. is alleged to be identical with the mare Phoebe who competed at Tahuna, Park, Oamaru, and Mosgiel Park during the early part of the present season. — Amongst the winners at Warwick Farm j (Sydney), on Novembar 29, was Per.dant, a I daughter of the imported Far Niente. and Neckjet, the daughter of Muskpt and Locket. On Ihe same day Cecil Rhodes, a gelding by Niagara, got away with a mile welter. — New Zealand Wood was largely, but unsuccessfully, represented at the Ripon (Eng.) meeting on October 35. Amongat the beaten division during the afternoon's racing -were two representatives of Carbine, a colt and a filly Tjy Trenton and a gel-ding by Chainshot. — France made a bold bid for victory in the Cambridseshire Stakes this year with two representatives in Nabot, a grey colt by Le Sa-ncy, and Alencon, a three-year-old colt by Clairon. The former was third and the latter fourth, and heads divided tha place winners. — The Dewhurst Plats, of 1647scvs. seven furlongs, one of the leading two-year-old events decided on the English turf, was won by Rock Sand by three lengths from his Majesty the j !Kine's Mead, the latter being a head in front of the Carbine colt Greatorex. The winner's time was 1.27 3-5. ! — The following w?re the drawer? of the ! •olaced hoTsea in Tatteraall's consultation on j the Sandhurst Cup, fully subscribed • — First, I J. M. Canley. Charlotte street. Collinswood, Viotori*. £6750; second. E. Daves. Bundle street. Adelaide, £2250 ; third, Mrs H. Branagan, | Mew South Wales. £1125. — William the Thvrd. who if considered the } best stayer in England, was defeated in the Jockey Club Cup, of 650sr>vs. w.f.a.. two miles and a-quarter. by Black Sand, the five-year-old son of Melanion and Sanda. The time va3 . slow (4.11 1-5), and William's downfall is excused by the fact that he has grown stale. — A book called "Scientific Speculation; or. Hacing as a Business," is one of the latest bdoka reviewed by the London Sportsman. The xotice consisted of 'three lines and ran as fol- ' lows:— Four small pages for 4s 6d. Why »r» philanthropists so eager to sell their valuable Eecreta instead of quietly profiting- by them? — Maltster has developed a will of his own, and prior to opening his winning account at Qaeensto-vn !»• n»»»l«i«»-*a l,i» rirUr anii had a

30-minutt career across country. When he was recaotured he was given very little time to recuperate, and then, won with a stone in hand, from his opponents in the First Hack Handi~i It costs £G to take a horse from Dunedin to Queenstown in one day, and that prohibitive figure had a great deal to do with the smallnes3 of the fields at the recent meeting. It is time that country clubs ertered into some eort of a combination with the view of getting a reduction of freightage and an improved method of travelling race horses about the cotmtry. , An American who formed the head of a tourist party which recently visited Queenstown went thither with the intention of staying a couple cf day=, but remained nine, and in bidding adieu to mine host of Eichardt's, said ■ "Say, mister, I've travelled considerable, and must say you've got the finest country on Gcd's earth ; but the people hereabouts appear to be waiting for the resurrection." In winning the Cambridgeshire Stakes with Ballantfae, the American trainer Huggins recorded his second win of that time-honoured event, as he also prepared Watershed, who won the race last year. Ballantrae is by Ayrshire, the grand sire of Ayrdale out of a granddaughter of Lord Lyon, and carrying 6.8, which included a slb apprentice allowance, left the mile and a furlong of the race behind in 1.54. — Taral, the American jockey, is very popular in Austria. In Vienna recently, as he was walking to hi 3 carriage after winning a race, h* oassed along the enclosure where the public gather. He was recognised and applauded, and had some difficulty in preventing the public from carrying Mm shoulder-high in triumph. The Vienna Sporb declares him. to be the most popular man in Hungary, and to enjoy a reputation such as no owner or jockey has as yet attained. p. Dunn, -who rode Godwin in the Sandhurst (Vie.) Cup, made the statement after the race that he mistook the winning post. There is a starting machine some 40yds before reaching the judge's box, and Dunn asserted that he^thought the post in connection with it was the winning poet. She same thing happened in connection with Impulse's N.Z. Cup, in which Alder shot's rider mistook the barrier posts for the winning po3t, and got beaten into third place. On the authority of Messrs William C "Turtle and Co., it was stated that tbe Fulham Park stallions, mares, yearlings, etc., would ba Bold "absolutely without reserve." This proviso, it seems, says the Australasian, was uot carried out. Some day there -will be trouble and law over this business. It is a question whether a man who bids two hundred for a horse which is then knocked down to some representative of the owner at an advance cannot insist on delivery. It seems only reasonable to suppose that such a claim, if made, would hold good. Some of our crack sprinters would knock tho bottom out of the world's records over short courses if they were taken to the Queenstown course. The Serf carried over 11.0, and ran half a mile in 48sec a couple of days before last week's meeting, and>, in addition broke a b'oodvessel in his head. In each of his starts at the gathering lie lost his chances of success through bursting Sloodveasels. The track is dow.n hill for the- last five furlongs, and Vladimir, Blazer, or Goldspur would reel off four furlongs in "nothing." — The Duke of Portland's Carbine colt Greatozsex got 'his name fronr a lady, a greengrocer, and possibly 'a spice- of superstition in the owner. If he lives up to his divination he will win the Derby of 1903, for the lady in a dream saw 'a colt of his colour, name and ownership doing co; and his Grace shortly afterwards noticed the name on a greengrocer's cart. The Duke's duty was obvious, and he did it. The bay colt being there and entered for the Derby, let him be called Greatorex, co that the owner's part of the combination, might liot bs lacking. Made coinci<tenres, lioive-rer, have no great virtue, and the other sort sre doubtful finger-posts to success. — The breeding of Prince Florizel, who has been a pretty «cod performer in England during the ]-.r= L - - c1:.c 1 :. is (says the Australasian) ii-teresthr -> • .ins, as he was got by the King's ' ! TI from Good Hope, by Gloriou ■ by Lucifer from Bridget (dam of < -?d Hope, it will ba remembers . i-i-d by ChaTles Rudings, and won ;i i. -r of races here. She was afterwards t.'.ho : to Ir.dia, where she was beaten by a head by Highborn for the Viceroy's Cup. She was bred by Mr James Mitchell, of Tabletop, and the English Sportsman made a mistake in her tabulated pedigree, as it gives Lucifer as by Lord Pauconbevg from Starlight, whereas he was by Gemma di Vergy from Peri, by Birdcatchev. " Prince Florizel is said to be one of the best stayers in England. — At Maisons-Laffitte <France) recently, says Sx correspondent of the Evening News, the police, accompanied by a veterinary surgeon, made a descent on the stables of M. De la Biousse. Eight racehorses were examined, and one, Puissant, was taken from its stall and confided to the keeping of the veterinary siirgeon pending further inquiries. The other animals were handed over to the head lad of M. De la Brousse, the- owner having disapBeaVisd. It is asserted that Puissant is a horse which, formerly ran under another name, and that the facts in the possession of the police recall the Colimacon scandal. A quantity of correspondence was seized at the residence of M?*De la, 'Bronsse, and several other proprietors are said to be involved in the affair, wbich has caused considerable commotion in racing circles at Maisoas-Laffitte.