TURF GOSSIP

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 136, 8 June 1907, Page 11

TURF GOSSIP

During SO years" close connection with the Turf, the noted Hungarian .sportsman. Baron S. ITeelirritz. has wou 579 races, of the total value of £120,000. These are big figures indeed, and yet it is said that the sporting baron has found £»c__: a very costly amusement.

Ac a sale of yearlings in Englaad a fciaek Colt_by Loved One from Edna was aaH at logs. lir Tattersall declared him to b« absurdly cheap. "We have," he aeided, '"seen several black horses win this week, and yet there appears to be a prejudice against them." '"I have often noticed t'nis prejudice, and wxradered why it should be so persistently entertained," says an English writer

Though the starting-gate is well established in England, many owners and trainers would prefer to go back to the old style of starting. .Mr Coventry, one of the leading starters, Informed hfin (says Mr S. ILiUerT who recently returned from England), however, that he liked the gate. One reason why the machine did not ap-. pear so successful in England was, he thenght, because the horses were spread out so much ar the post. Thi3 was with the Idea of preventing them kicking- each other. He saw racing on some English courses where stipendiary stewards would have found work to do. He was surprised that very suspicious cases of running were allowed to pass without notice. Racing is as fi-ourishing as ever in England, and while he enjoyed the sport he witnessed, he thought in some respetrts racrn; was better conducted in Australia. The general public, for one thing, received much more consideration than im English courses.

Says the "Sporting Chronicle": The results of recent Parliamentary by-elections, and the sweeping triumph of the Municipal Reform candidate at the polls in London recently, afford welcome evidence that the wort of demolishing the fadeiist party has commenced in earnest. AYe are now able ta see what the sporting vote can accomplish when its- full strength is rallied. The London elections, of course, were fought on other issues besides that of "meddlesome intolerance with regard to the sports and amusements of the people." which was the strong line in the manifesto of tbe Sporting League, but the latter can well claim to have wielded a potent influence in connection with the contest. The self-appointeei gnarelians of the people's morals and the people's liberties, have., consulted the intelligence of Lenaon. and London has answered them, and kiched them downstairs. What the militant thonsands of the Metropolis did the rest of the country is ready to do when the opportunity oeerurs. Politics, ordinarily speaking, have no concern with the affairs of a sporting jonrnaL _t there are times out of the ordinary. "iTe recognise that we have many fri __ who sit in_ Parliament now on the same side as do the occupants of tho Ministerial benches. Bnt we also recognise, as they h.ife done, that they are in company not of their own seeking. One or two have had trie courage of their convictions, but theirs have been voices which have cried cut only in a -wilderness of hypocrisy and cunt. It is the duty of every sportsman, at every opportunity, and in every place, to adel to the number of these broadminded 3ritons who hold allegiance to no narry but that which seeks to do just by all.

"Who are the men who bet?" exclaims "''Garerh." of the "Referee," and then pro-cei-ds to give some "frightful examples." •The late Lord Chief Justice of Englanei. Lord Russell of Klllowen, told mc a few rears back that he had seventeen bets on the Cesarewitch—and lost them all. I do ne-.t know whetier another ...eminent judge now living, Lore! Brampton, betted, but I have s?en him so earnestly -watching -races at Newmarket that it certainly looked as if his name figured in some bookmake_ s voLnme. That a late Solicitor-General, Sir Frank Loctwood. backed horses I happen to Icnow, because I have more than once? pnt money on for him. Lord Rosebery is nn ex-Prime Minister. Did he let Ladas .md Sir Visto 'ran loose" at Epsom and Doncaster? HaeJ. his investments nothing to do with the favouritism of Cicero? His long inrerviews with Mr Peach may have been on the subject of European politics. Lord Rothschild and his brother. Mr Lee> pold de Rothschild, are eminent philanthropises. I think both of them bet. T am sure one of them does—and why shouldn't he"? A recent Chaplain of the House of Commons betted habitually. "vThr-n the Duke of Portland won the Derby with Ayrshire. I have the strongest reasons _for believing that the money he expendr-d in presents—the owner of a Derby winner has a great deal of exalted tippin.? to do—came from the ring. My acquaintance with London police magistrates ha.s always been slight, bnt I have known two. and they both betted; I know one who bets still, and with excellent judgment. Not long since I used often to meet at Sand-own a hard-working and most conscientious country clergyman who had a few sovereigns on -at any rate most of the races during the afternoon. It scarcely seems probable that tbe persons and personages mentioned—and I could add to the list—will be inclined to learn morality from the faddists."

There are varions signs (ofeerves the "Daily Telegraph'! to inculcate he fear that amateur riding has deteriorat;d- The gentleman riders both for the lat and steeplechase have become very nuch fewer. Take the account of the late "roitoa Park meeting in AprU. There aronld not have been five runners In any ace it the conditions bad not included proe_.o_.als. and there were only eight ama:euT_ riding ou the day in question; wliilst' n Lord Wilton's time it was no uncommon iccnrrence to see 14 turn ont for a Granny "landicap. It -k-s_ tbe suns at t_ Biliary Club meeting. held at Salisbury. Then t is extremely dimeult to find jockeys at ill for a Grand National. Several owners md trainers have deplored the tact that :hey cau count up the really efficient men ra the- flng-ere of their two hands, and that n the case of an accident it is ausblutely mpossible towards the eleventh hour to snd a substitute. All that was quite elif'erent years ago. when, in the anxiety :o get a mount for a National, the very )est of men were often available. John "Joodwin rode The Colonel in several of lis previous races; but he broke his collaricne just before Liverpool in a steeplechase, and such a good man as George Stephens was found directly to fill his place n Tho Colonel's saddle. It was the same vhen iir Alec. Goodman was asked to ride Salamander. He had never heard of the lorse until the night before. One of the ildest and most experienced gentleman T.ders. nearly always in steeplechases, and the trainer of a Grand National winner, ieplores the present condition of things, tnd considers that much of it is due to the wretched American system, as he calls it. tvhich has been introduced as the fashionlble method of race-riding. It has taught :he present Hat-race to ride in a position that has nothing to do with horsenanship such as he was accustomed to. Ir :annot be adopted for cross-erauntry riding, md so the recruits to the steeplechase division of sport are entirely missing, and as :he few old ones that are left die out there niil be no others to fill their places. The example also has tended to spoil riding, is years ago it was quite the general thing :o copy Alfred Day. Tom Cannon, or Weils-, iiut now the inclination is to lautrh at what is much like the figure of a monkey between a horse's ears. The un-English idea also of borrowing such a figure to win our Derbys is quite contrary to the views of the British sportsman. It is said that no one has a greater dislike to the svst „ than the King and his trainer. Richard Marsh. To satisfy two sets of employers the young jockey, Herbert Jones, has to let out two or three holes of his stirrup leathers when wearing the royal livery, and to pull tnem up again when riding for patrons outside the E_rton House establishment This strands somewhat ridiculous anei would it not Be well if the Jockey Club wera to intervene and demand that horses ba riassa in a reasonable manner

One of the best-known of th° advertising commission ajrents wrote to the -bportsmar.-' recently npparentlv to congratulate himself on his good luck H.e had done remarkably well, he said, over the Lmcolnshire Handicap and the National —a statement wnidi may or may sot hays beta ta big "'rrr.

CBy WHALEBOJTES

who bad, of necessity, done badly; and he went on 'ingenuously— if it were ingenuoss, perhaps it was ingenions—to advertise the magnitude" of his business by observing that if the enormous number of commissions that had been executed at the Flashins office were generally known people would na longer he inclined to say that ante-nest betting was dwindling. A great" many men iite to take a long price about the horse they fancy, and chance eventualities. Often they see it knoetad eat. sometimes "it crops np at distant intervals on the same mark, occasionally it shortens and may even afford them hedgIn-» if they wish to avoid risk. There wouleL, I believe, he plenty of ante-post betting if only backers in general felt sura that much of that which js quoted was not special! v devised for their bsc'-iil'-ment. There are "the gravest doubts as to whether many of the bets quoted are genuine. The recorders of' them' see them made, no doubt—this is not a question of the _ od faith c£ the compiler of quotations—but it ia suspected that bets are frequently laid and raken merely in order that they may be put in the papers, and that onts'dVrs may consequently be persuaded to follow suit—l pat It all la the simplest terms It is certain that several horses w»re apparently backed for the first week's handicap and strne_ out in a day or two; and that comparatively short prices were taken about animals whose owners did not intern to run them, or. at any rate, had not made up their minds to do so as also abort other animals who were under grave scsjßCion. T_o _ is no proof that these were bogus t,et=" It is quite possible that someone who had seen Wolf's Folly, for example, win at Sandown, and did not know that he had hit his leg and was doing no work, may have sent in to back him; quite possible again, that somebody else thought he "had waited long enough for a land vi the case of Dean Swift, and had better net on before the odds contracted. Bu.. when so many horses are backed just before they are scratched or smocked out it does "look as if well-informed layers know what was going to hacpen and hastened tn create *n opportunity of getting a bit out of animals that were safe. When ■t horse i* backed cr wiien it seems as if *c were being backed a number of Pfopie are always ready to suppose that tne moneycomes from the,stable or from someone _=mred directly or indirectly., legitimately or illegitimately, by the stable: and they hLtento follow suit. Ido not know the e_eut of the business which our advertising commission agent considered enormous 1 the only thing we know about tms is that ba?-ke_ with few e-eptinus. lest tteirmonft according to the evid_ce o, the San who won, but I have, no doubt the £_ta_Trf ante-post betting would be greatly increased if there were a more convincing ring about it.

-Ton often hear tlie remark horses are as capricious as women, said* trainer recently to a writer m tne Live Stock Journal, "hut I*d rather put it tnathey're as whimsical as children -Their likes and dislikes are formed all of a sudden. Lite a _ild*s, and as often as rot a thoroughbred horse has the same sort of instinctive" guidance behind his whimsical aotion that the child lias. For instance, a naturally sneaky, treacherous man has na more chance to grain tlie goodwill of a high-bred, high-strung racehorse than he _ to stain the confidence of a child. "There's something in both the horse and the child that tells them the bad-hearted, man isn't the good. That something, 1 suppose. Is pure instinct. Bat horses of high _tfbre have an even wider range or whims That's why every goe>d racehorse has to h" earefuilv studied by his trainer. "A dozen years ago I trained a great racehorse —one of the greatest of-his .time? —who was as calm and self-contained as a sleepins mastiff, except for one thing. He. couiil not tolerate the sight of a man with a beard. It was pure nervousness.-of- coarse, bnt yon can't tell mc that horse didn't get that aversion somewhere. W* hear abour children being 'marked' with some characteristic from thesir mothers.

"I believe just as thoroughly- that hl3 dam had been abused by some fellow wita a beard, and that she transmitted her feai of and hatreel for bearded men to the son. It nay not be scientific, and an that," but I know a lot of plain old facts about horse 3 and things that are not incltnled in any system of science.

"ilejst racehorses are devoted to womenYet I've trained thoroughbreeis that had such an innate dislike tor women, it was. dangerous for a woman to get anywhere near them. I've got a good' horse In my string now that's dead "mashed' on the young: wife of the owner for -whom I train, except when she approaches him with the "frou-frou" of a silk skirt. Then he won't her around him at rtTT.

"The hiss and swish of the silk skirt startles him, and finally drives nlm into a sort of frenzy of nervousness or resentment, or whatever you please to call It When she isn't wearing any rustling silk skirt to bother him. he is as gentle with her as a Newfoundland dog is with a baby, and bends his hand forward to her to have her. rub his ears, and muzzles her face and hale with the affection of a child.

"I've now got a horse -who acts curiousiyOn the morning of his race he becomes aa_, solemn as an owl, and stands perfectly" rigid, with scarcely a blink, for nearly all of the forenoon hours, apparently in a state; of deep meditation on -what's about to come off.

"His barrel breaks out in a sort of cold sweat, and. yet he Is so solemn over it you could almost wave a burning newspaper before his eyes without mnirin-r -__ m turn a hair. . And yet on other days, he's an agreeable, normal sort of a horse, and •as playful as a kitten.

"I was alarmed over him when I first got him- when, he stot Into that rigid, immovable state on the morning- of firsr race nnder my care. Fearin_r something: ailed him. I was going to scratch. him_ B_ his owner wanted him left In, and I sent him along, and he walked up to the barrier, still as stiff as a ramrod, with as fixed a stare iv his eye as if he'd been poisoned. But when the flag dropped and the neti__r fiew up. he was off like a tynlioon. and he came home in bulldog style. 'On ail of his race days since then he's got himself into the same solemn and rigid state during the forenoon, but there hasn't been anything _■_£ about him after the drop of the hag.

**. oti> - er horses become painfully nervous on their race days, trampling around in their boxes like caged lions, and shaking their heaas and rolling: their eyes, and kiekingnp a racket that takes _ good deal ont of tnem wnen It comes to racing. And then, there are horses who. on their race mornings, go right on about their complaisant business, not bothering at all, but who, Zz? a y , OT . Tisi t their stills to take yonrlast «ok at them before the saddling, hour. i-S? t r , eir m ""-"""Ies in your shirt-front - ._. YOn ** tie c ** as mc<: -a as to say: i ,_P. a ' T , m a-soing to do the best t

that v r^ Vs tie k ** ld of a hheo ™c I Uk__Tt_H_ Eay * sa PP°<- in S tt's possible for £&_!£ _._f*___ a hor - cane anybet -