THE SPORTING WORLD

October 21. THK TURF. The victory of Argos m the Middle Park Plate by no means settles the pointas to which is the best two-year-old of the season. Mr Neumann's colt certainly moii easily, though it wa:s apparent that Siriaiv (second) did not show the dash his position a;; favorite led one to expect. Regarding the latter, he ran m the name of Mrs j. ].. Joel, her husband having presented her with the colt. Curiously enough, Grati.n (third) alsoi belongs to a lady — the Duchess of Newcastle. Returning to Argos, he Mas beaten a neck by Telephone Girl m the Linton Plate iii his previous outing, the filly con ceding 71b ;>nd foregoing the sex allowance. Thus it is possible that Telephone Girl would have headed the field- had she beer, among the runners for the race under notice. Following form through Telephone Girl, :t is evident tliat Fifinella must be A__y smart This half-sister to Silver Tag was conceding 101 b to Telephone Giri m the Bibury Club Stake*, and yet. she was only beaten a head. It will be well to remember this when Mr Hutton's crack turns out next season. A certain i-umber of critics are inclined to consider Figaro the best two-year-old of the season. It may be so. but the form of Fifinella looks very good on paper. — Past History. — In recent years many Middle Park pj;:te winners have proved disappointing m their next season. When Friar Marcus won la.t autumn sjiortsmen were hopeful that the colt would carry the King's colors to victory m the Derby. How the colt has failed to uphold his earlier form will bs fresh m the memory of all mv readers. Even a greater disappointment" was the failure of The Tetrn.V_h. True, he was not a Middle Park Plate winner, but his two-year-old form led experts to vote the grey the finest colt since Ormonde's time. Many other talented two-year-olds have failed to maintain their prestige. Looking over the winners of the Middle Park Plate one notices that only three — Ladas, Galtee More, and Lemberb — have followed up the success by winning the Derby since the year 1893. Of ccirse, Craganour was the moral winner m 1913, as he finished m front of Aboyeur, but was disqualified for bumping and boring. — Mr Neumann Leads. Tlie success of Argos m the Middle Park j Plate has led to a change m the winning j owners' list The sportsman named shows jthe way with seven wins worth' £l3,ssl. j Whilst Mr S. Joel (£10,896) and Mr J. B Joel (£8,983) are second and third. S. Donoghue is an easy first among - jockeys, so far as winning mounts go, with 57 victories to his credit out of 348 attempts. P. Gilpin tops the winning trainers' ! list, he having sent out eight winners, ! which have accounted for eleven races | worth £15,019. — Items. — I Few American trainers have enjoyed I the popularity of Joy ncr m England j and jhe is now quite one "of ns. He is shortly l returning to the United States, but merely i on a visit, it being his intention to coitn. ! back to Kngland. It may be- added that j his brother trainers at Newmarket have i recently presented him with a handsome 1 silver talver, which indicates how he is ! Tked. N Two noted steeplechase riders m Percy Woodland and R. Morgan are among the jockeys who arc now wearing khaki. The former is serving m Egypt, and m a recent letter he related how he had scored iv some of the military race meetings, so ,'h-j is evidently all right. Morgan joined the 19th Hussars soon after the outbreak j of war, but he has lately been transferred ! to the armored motor-car section, which : happens to be the one m which W. Griggs is serving. j ATHLETICS. Followers of athletics will be interested ( to hear that Harry Green, the holder of 1 the Marathon track record, has. been given ; a commission for meritorious service m ; action. Green, who is a member of the | Heme Hill Harriers, won the big Maraj thon race from Windsor Castle to Chelsea m 1911. beating J. M. Ryan (of America), winner of that year's Boston Marathon. ; H-e failed rather' badly m the Stockholm I Marathon, however, and was probably stale. Subsequently be set vp a fine string of records on (he Stamford Bridge track, London, from 21 miles to the full Marathon journey (26 miles 385 yards). He passed the 25-mile mark iii 2h 29mm 29|sec, or a shade better than 10 miles par hour. The full distance of 26m 385 yds was run m 2h 38min 16sec, and bothre- ; present Avorld's amateur track records. That race showed that Green was capable of a great performance at 20 to 25 miles, but he fell off very much during the last mile. His success was largely due to the splendid judgment he displayed, as from the -very start he was content to do no better than a shade inside 6min per mile. He felt so well at 16 miles that he was tempted to increase the pace, and at about 18 miles he was going beautifully. In this he made a mistake, and had he kept j to his 6min per mile schedule he would I have put up a better performance for the , full journey. Green has been a sergeant ■ m the Surrey Regiment for some time, and | it was m Gallipoli that his good work ! gained liini a commission. — Canadian Sports.—Wherever the Canadian troops are quartered one can always look for plenty of , interesting sport. Some of these splendid fighters are quartered at Folkestone, and j they livened up matters on Saturday by • holding a sports meeting. The half-mire relay race (four to a team) was the star ' event, and this aroused the utmost eni thusiasm. Coule, Carbonel, Beasley, and I Flowers proved themselves useful furlong I runners, and they secured the honor for the 6th Canadian Mounted Rifles. ConI sidering the nature of the course, it was ! not a bad performance to finish the joiu 1j ney m Imivi 47sec. j Mention may also be made of the excel- . 1-Mit form shown by Ruddy, of the Army | Veterinary Corps, when winning the 40yds race. j Another attraction at Folkestone was a j baseball match between the Canadian j troops and a team of London Americans. I The soldiers gained a very easy victory, scoring 10 runs, m eight innings, whilst the Americans could only make 2 m the full game of nine innings. BOXING. We have had several big matches crowded into tlie past few days. First and j foremost was the first championship of the j season, which brought Taney Lee (of Scotland) and young Symonds (of Plymouth) into opposition for the fly -weight "title at the National Sporting Club, On the re- ! suit of past contest, this looked a good j thing for Lee, as Jimmy Wilde easily beat I Symonds a year ago, and subsequently | Lee knocked out Wilde tor the champion- : shii). Symonds has made improvement since then, and he gave convincing proof 1 of this from tlie very start on Monday. 'To the surprise of all, he forced matters, and quickly assumed the lead, ..o that tlie ! odds on the- champion soon v.ered round I the other way. Lee is a dogged customer, and his friends were very, hopeful that he would wear his man down and score a

knock-out. In the eleventh round, however, the contest- went so much m favor of the Englishman that his ultimate victory was expected.- He upset his rival with a body blow, and during .he thirteenth round Lee was very groggy. It was all Symonds m lhe fifteenth round, and a few more seconds would have seen Lee out. It made little difference, however, as when they resumed Symonds dropped his man for counte of three and six seconds, and his seconds saved him from unnecessary punishment by throwing a towel into the ring m token of defeat. Jimmy Wilde was an interested onlooker, and he will certainly be after the winner, particularly as it is 'known that he was not himself when beaten by Lee. — Other Recent Matches. — The N.S.C. was also the scene of a match between Denis Haugh, of^L'ipperary, and Sergeant Curzon, sth King's Royal Rifles. The latter was all ovei- his rival from the start, and won easily. Haugh is the man who was badly thrashed by .Sergeant Dick Smith at the National two seasons ago, but to the amazement of the company the former got the verdict. They met again subsequently, when Smith again decisively won, and on that occasion was not robbed of the winner's end. Dan M'Goldriek, of Scotland, gained tlie decision over Louis Verger, .of France, m their bout at Plymouth, arid another international between Jean Constant^ of France, and Jack Daniels, of the Royal Fueiliers. at tho Ring (London), ended m favor of thp visitor during the- seventh round. Another well-known performer m Spike Robson, of North Shields, now a bombardier m the Royal Field Artillery, seemed to have the better of his bout with Jim Skinner, of London, at Coventry, though tlie referee announced it a draw. FOOTBALL. No longer can Nctts County claim the rlisiiinction of bering -the lorily English League club with the highest possible number of points. This came about through the team only drawing (1-1) when receiving Huddersfield on Saturday. Still Notts County holds a good lead m the Midland combination, with 11 points for six games, whilst Leeds City (second) lias played .even matches for 10 points. The latter club gained a big win when at home to Barnsloy, scoring seven goals — of wliich Price got five — to one by their visitors. Manchester City remains unbeaten m the Lancashire section, but dropped a point when receiving Oldham, each scoring twice. Everton's 4 goals to 3 win at Bolton, and Burnley's home triumph of 5 goals to 2 over Blackpool, were two of the big wins m this section. Chelsea is now the only unbeaten club m the London combination, Brentford going down for the first time when visiting Watford, last year's Southern champions winning by 2 goals to 1. Chelsea's latest win (3-1) was gained at the expense of their visitors from Croydon, and the Stamford Bridge team tops tli. table with 12 points for seven games, Milhvall and Brentford being 2 points behind. BILLIARDS. Inman and Stevenson are haying a big struggle for supremacy m their level billiard match of 18,000 points up. At one time it appeared as though Stevenson would hold a big lead at the halfway stage, but the champion then came along with an excellent break of 452, and he was only a matter of 627 points behind with the game hailf over, so \ve may see a big finish yet. Gray was seen to advantage whilst making a break of 468 against Aiken a few days ago. Smith, of Darlington, has also been displaying fine form, and on Monday afternoon ho made eight breaks of over a century, returning an average of 140 for each visit to the table.