TUKF NOTES.

CBX WHALBSOSEj I I CyHene, for whom, a, South. American buyer paid 30,000 guineas about four years ago, has now ibesn represented at two of the annual sales at Buenos Aires. I His stock have already realised more than twice his purchase money, and ap- | parently he would have been a cheap borse even at 50,000 guineas. Vt F. C Stem, who at the sale of the 1-ate Six Danie! Cooper's stud, crave 12.000 guineas for Flair, offered a yearling colt o-ut of her, by Spearmint, at the last Newmarket eaJes. What Ms. Stern's estimate of tie value of the youngster was did not transpire, but . he refused an offer of 3700 guineas at •the ringside, and may intend to race him. The foHowir-g- from a Buenos Aire3 paper shows that in selling younpr stock /n the Argentine they are fully alive to ail tile fine points of the business: "in common with the custom of the country, the two-year-olds were presented piglet, so that they looked extremely weiierosvn, even though assisted to appear bigger than tiey really were by being displayed on a beautifully turfed sward, raised like a pla.tform at least 18 ioches from "the ground." In Sydney some of the trainers are ' always ready to blame pressmen for im- , parting private information concerning good gallops. However, no newspaper ; men witness the track work at RosehilL ' bet Pola (sister to Rovigno) who had never previously raced, was rushed to each an extent on the opening of berting on the Nursery Stakes that she quickly 'touched even money. This went towards upholding my oft-expressed opinion, says a Sydney writer, that trainers have more to fear from trainers than pressmen. The Haanpton horse Ladas, which has -ziever realised the expectations formed i of a Derby winner as a sire (remarks an | Bngiiah writer) is evidently near the \ end of his Although oidy 21 years j old, he iias been retired from active eer- j •vice. p«t temper has not improved j iwitih age, paid he strongly resenia the | iirtrusroii cf visitor© in his paddock. His ! back has become very hoHow, and, as I an English -writer remarked recently, "I suppose he has worn -himself out rwit'h fcVa resSessnees and .peevishness." Mr. Wootton, in an interview in Australia, stated that his eon Frank, who •was the best jockey in England, headed the Kst again this year, despite the fact that he had been u stood down" for two monr.hd for alleged careless riding. The reason fox this punishment was due, Mr. Wooton alleged, to the jealousy of Maher and other jockeys. They were continually complaining of Frank's riding, and the stewrrds could only act on the weight of evidence, and Frank was punished accordingly. Mr. Wootton, ■however, thought that British stewards •were beginning to "take a tumble" to this sort of thing. Mr. Wootton strenuously denied the rumour that as the result of the treatment meted out to his eon he jntended to return to Australia for good. There is too much money at Home, he remarked significantly. Eeferxing again to his son Frank, he said that the latter was Maher'e master, and Maher knew it. Still Maker was a very good rider. In England an absurd cry has been raised against Mr PUkington for running ] Prince Palatine for the Jockey Club Cup, j for which he was beaten, says a writer in the "Pink "Un." If he had not runtrim he wotdd have been sneered at for want of ptack. As a matter of fact, he behaved as a sportsman should do. We •were becoming weary of the pusillanimity of owners who, having won a good race, were afraid to run the horse again for fear thai he should be beaten. The race ■we want to see is Prince Palatine and Steadfast in the Ascot Cup, and it may come off. The defeat of the ir Prince" was | very similar to that of William the Third j for the same event. The following June Join Porter tried William the Third to be better than he had ever been. His defeat in the Cop, however, interfered with the nice little plan that had been formed for form. He wag bo have gone, to the stud at a three hundred guinea fee, each subscriber to subscribe for three years. With thirty mares that would have meant 27,000 guineas earned before the horse was tttpp years old. II has been pretty generally stated that I Qic National Hunt Committee (i n the i OM Country), in responhe to the cries of j Ttoo nroch jumping" which has been | raised in the columns of the Press for i same years, have decided to considerably i orrtail the number of fixtures during the j ensuing winter season. So far as I can I see (says ''Bayardo," in a London week-1 ly), the priming process has not been of a: Tsery pronounced character. They have! amply lopped off a day here and thera ' from the small, meetings, and ! left the "scheduled" fixtures "as they j ■were. 5. Whether this is altogether fair I' m not prepared to say. There is no! doubt a good deal of favour shown in these ' matters, and Newbury, for instance, is particularly fortunate in being able to J bask in the smiles of the powers that be. j J?or some reason or other this enclosure fcae been fairly rushed to the front, al- j though it has only been in existence a j few years, »-nri the way it is allowed to' dash indiscriminately with meetings less happily situated has created a good deal of comment. However, the point which I wish to make is that the smaller meetings act as a sort of nursery for the bigger ones. Horses frequently graduate at lie TTiinnr country fixtures which would probably not be entered at Newbury, Sandown, or Hurst Park. From the ranke of these animals first-class steeplechasers are often discovered, and this is important, because there is such a paucity of really good cross-country performers at the present time. The question thus arises, "Are ■pie smaller meetings to be encouraged f i should say, most decidedly, yes. In their so-called efforts at reform, the National Hunt Committee do not seem to mc to be particularly well advised in trying to strangle the little meetings. Many years ago the numerous hunt gatherings aM over the country were really the backbone of steepleehasing. Those were the times when we saw a genuine stamp of steeplechase horse performing at the principal meetingE. The grams has given way to a. glorified type of fiat racpr which is not the germing article at all. Since high-handed legislation stamped out the hnnt meetings, which were, for the moat part, held over an orthodox hunting counipv, the sport has shown rapid and alarming evidence of deterioration, and the prospects for the coming winter are, co fcr as I can gather, far from rosy.

I When the English fiat racing, season !■ ! associated with this year closed, Mr T. I Pilkington, with £20,822, headed the list O;f successful owners. That is a good I round sum to win, but yet> a mere bagatelle when compared with the amount — £.73,55S —won in one year by the Duke of Portlands horses. The curious wagers of an immensely rich patron ol the Turf in England ' are at present the talk in the grand- | stands. He delights in backing horses at : enormous odds. The horses in most cases have not a ghost of a chance of -winning, but every now and then the unexpected happens, and a forty to one chance rolls home, leaving the bookmakers who have been reaping a golden harvest discomfited. In an interview before sailing from. New York, M. Cheri Halt-ronn stated I that the syndicate on whose behalf, he i had purchased Rock Sand from Mi- August Belmont for ;C30.000 is made up of forty hhares held by thirty-four American, English, and French racing men. Eiifland i≤ represenU-d by Lord Lon.--dale and iir. Walter Raphael The American contingent comprises Me&sriClarence Mackay. F. B. Hitchcock, F. JGould, Joseph Widner, Charles Carroll, H. P. Whitney, and Charlie Kohler. The best-known i'rench named are those ol *U J. Prat (owner of Mirsaka), M. Arh ille Fould, M. Guerlain, and M. Cheri Halbronn himseii. Mr. August Belinont is not one of the members of the syndicate, but b-aa two nominations for nest year, and >>"•* sent over on the sJ- Minnewaska, on which iiock Sand has also been shipped, and which left New York on November 2, two of his beet mares. They are Topiary, the dam of Tracery, and Golden View, dam of Bock View, .both of which will be mated with Eock Sand. Referring to the Cesarewiteh rave at Home a London turf scribe thus refers to the owner of the winner of the famous race, Mr "Bob Sievier:—"After the race, Warlingham's owner received a great ; ovation in the ring. He was seen waving I his hat excitedly in front of an admiring I and probably envious crowd. He actually ! distributed £5 notes to some of his needy I acquaintances. It is said that he cleared I £27.000 as the result of his horse's victory. ! Thus the ring would be pretty hard hit. i Mr. Bob Sievier is one of the most pici turesque figures on the turf. His life story contains more life romance than many a shilling novel. His vicissitudes have" been remarkable, and time after time he has had to encounter the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," only to come up smiling again, and now he has once more run into a big fortune. Xo man is more popular with the general aniv of racegoers, and though probably few*of the public profited by Warlmgham's victory, they cheered as heartily as though they" had had a good race. There is a report, and one tiat eeems to be well grounded, says a Sydney writer, to the effect that the AJ.C. committee contemplate removing entirely from the conditions governing thetr big handicap races that clause which stipulates for penalties on winners. The new departure will not, so the story goes, apply to "classic" races, only to handicaps, and though the weight adjusters may not agree with the change, it is quite certain to have the whole-hearted support of the promoters of race clubs, and of many horee-ownera also. It has long been said that but for the penalty clauses in the big races, the smaller race clubs would often have increased their prize money acd thus made the cod ! ditions generally better for the horsei owner. But it was of no use hanging upvaluable prizes designed to attract the best horsee whose owners would not run them when it meant risking a penalty for some big race to follow. For that reason club promotoro generally k-ept to the old order of things. Now there is a prospect of something better, and it trill be interesting to watch developments. If the scheme materialises, it may be better for racing all round. There will be more prize money, better comper tition at those meetings whjen lead up to the bigger ones, and a healthier tone may pervade the sport. Nestor Wilmart's defalca-laone and and flight are the foremost subjects of convocation on the racecourses and at the hunts where sportsmen foregather. He •was an extremely popular man, and no one suspected that the money which he dispensed with such prodigality had been obtained by fraud. For the last 12 years he had been one of the most prominent figures on the Belgian turf. At his stud farm and training stables he owned over a hundred thoroughbreds, and he was often a heavy speculator in the ring. The brothers Wilmart practically took up the interests of M. C. Lienart in the Ghent stable, when that gentleman removed his horses from Belgium to France. By issuing duplicate share certificates in the railway eonrpany of which he was managing 'director. Wilmart <***™* during recent years over 40.000,000 francs from banks, stockbrokers.' and private friends. Several well-known sportsmen have been hird hit, and it is said that one of the leading French jockeys -will be the loser of a vtrry large sum. How the frauds could have extended over such a long period it is difficult to understand, but no one suspected Wilmart, who always posed as a wealthy man, and he was exceedingly generous in all his dealings. It was only by accident, a few weeks ago, that the frauds were discovered, and the bubble burst. It is strange to see- a Belgian programme without the name of on it. During the laet 15 years there has hardly been a race day on which he has no* run four or five horses. All are now in the hands of the law. and are to be sold. In the meantime, Nestor Wilmart has escaped, and the police of the Continent are searching for him in vain. A curious point has arisen in connection with the horsee in which II- Nestor Wilmart -was interested, .says the Parw correspondent of " The Sporting Life." Some of these were trained in France, but the majority in Belgium, and they all ran in the name and colours of Mr George Ashman. A number of yearlings ; ■were bought this year at the French Tattersall's, but they have not been paid for. They were purchased in Mr Ashman's name, without any declaration' of partnership, and it is a question ol who is responsible. Then, again, there are several mares > at the Morialme Stud Farm, for which the stallion fees have not been paid. The owners of the stallions are not compelled I to give «. certificate of service until they receive the fees, and, as the snares are all to be sold by auction their value -will be djsprecia,ted unless some-arrangement is made for registering the produce in the Stud Book.