ANOTHER BIG CROWD

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 40, 16 August 1937, Page 13

ANOTHER BIG CROWD

NATIONAL FINALS

NEARLY £30,000 INCREASE

Although there was a noticeable thinning out of visitors, local patronage kept up the attendance for the final day of the Canterbury Jockey Club's Grand National Meeting at Riccarton on Saturday. The day was the gem of a fine carnival week, with cloudless sky and pleasant sunshine, for most of the afternoon, and the crowd was keenly enthusiastic, both with the racing and then later on when periodic , broadcast reports of the football Test began to come through. There was much cheering on the course when, the result of the Test was announced after the microphone had been silent for some ten minutes during the betting on the seventh race. The meeting was the most successful the club has had since the days before the depression. Not only were the gate receipts up appreciably, but the totalisator turnover of £173,686 10s for the three days represented an increase of over 20 per cent, on last year's figures, which in turn were well up on the previous year's figures. The track was in splendid order, almost as fast as in November, as 'the record time in the Sydenham Hurdles showed. Form generally worked out satisfactorily, with the favourites succeeding in four events, a better result than often occurs when fields are of the quality and size of Saturday's. . Towards the end of the day the public found' the winners more difficult to pick, with Willie Win and Waitaka returning double-figure dividends, but Old Surrey > obliged the recovery-bid-ders in the final event.