TURF NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 116, 17 May 1924, Page 21

TURF NOTES.

(By WHALEBONE.) There has been no shorter-priced I favourite for the Grand National than Conjuror 11., though several horses have started at the same odds. Conjuror 11. had never fallen before, but now he was badly interfered with by |a loose horse, and finally brought down jat Becher's Broorc. I >N. McLachlan won the first race at Kempton Park on April 21, beating his father, W. 11. McLachlan (the exAustralian jockey), who rode the second horse in the same race. Later in the day McLachlan, senr., rode Evander, i who finished a dead heat for first place jin the Queen's Prize. | An unusual decision was arrived at iby the V.R.C. Committee early this month, when P. Muschialli, a country ,jockey appealed against the finding of the Avoca Shire T.C. for having disqualified him for six months for allegedly not trying to win the Novelty ■ Pony Race on February 20. The official | announcement was that "the matter ihad been referred back to the committee of the Avoca stewards, to be properly heard by a board of stewards not interested in the race." The fact that Heroic having captured in stakes the sum of £8339 up to the opening of the A.J.C. Autumn meetjing, the imminence of a fresh two-year-I old record was everywhere recognised. [Up till recently Thrice (by The Welkin) [ held the leading position as a stake- | earner in the juvenile division with | £8972. Herioc's victory in the Chanijpagne 'Stakes added £3370 to his total, jso that he is well ahead with f 11,709. When bought as a yearling Heroic cost 1800gns, so that he is to be entered with high-priced youngsters that appropriately reaped a golden return for his owner. On St. Patrick's Day, at New Orleans, Black Gold, a son of Black Toney and Useeit, by Bonnie Joe, carrying 120 pounds, and giving away weight to every other horse in the race, easily won the 15,000 dollars Louisiana Derby. Eleven of the best three-year-olds that could be assembled at New Orleans started in the race. Black Gold led from start to finish, and won easily by six lengths, thus enabling his fight to be seriously considered as a potential winner of the great Kentucky Derby this month. Mrs. R. M. Hoots, an Indian woman, from Oklahoma, is the owner and breeder of Black Gold, who, as a two-year-old started 18 times for nine wins, five seconds, two thirds, and twice unplaced. Already Black Gold has won something like 50,000 dollars. One of tbe most important and most successful training establishments in Chantilly is that presided over by the young public trainer Henry Count, who has shown himself a worthy son o! the famous, and now retired, Dick Count, who prepared Elf, Maximum, Gardefeu, and Holocauste among other equine celebrities. Henry Count, who has close upon a hundred horses in his stable, headed the list of winning trainers last year, both as to races won and money in stakes, since bis 72 victories earned over two millions of francs public money, including in his triumphs the Grand Prix de Paris with FilibeTt de Savoie. Count trains for the Comte de la Cimera, Viscount Harcourt, M. M. Goudchaux, Marquis de San Miguel, the Count Le M_rvis, M. Ranucci, M. E. Deschamps, and M. Vissio, and moreover, has twenty horses of his own. Jennings, who headed the list of winning riders in 1923, is the ) stable jockey, and there is no one more (popular on the French turf. In Australia most racing men do not c.re to be unpopular with the public, and when they have a horse in a bigi race that they do not intend to start they immediately scratch it. However, the English writer "Vigilant" does not agree with the policy of taking the public into confidence, and he recently wrote: "It has always been my opinion that as the owner pays the piper he is also entitled to call the tune, and if he is a betting owner, or his friends bet, the stable has a right to the cream of the market. It is for the industrious scribe to find Otit what is being done at the clubs and leading offices, and to give his readers the benefit of his observations and cleverness. The press man has no rights beyond those his industry and cleverness give him. Therefore, to pillory an owner who refuses information or declines to be interviewed is in the last degree unfair." Few people will, T think, agree with "Vigilant." While admitting that the owner pays the piper (says "Pilot"), is not the public entitled to some consideration ? Also, few Sydney pressmen "pillory" an owner, for "if he does not give at least a'fair answer to a j fair question he is promptly forgotten, | and the loss of publicity only hurts one man, and that is the owner. I Commenting on the Lincolnshire i Handicap won by the French horse, Sir Gallahad 111., "Viliganf* in the , London Sportsman" says: "There j was no particular feature in the i ranter to the post, except that Sir ; Gallahad 111. appeared to be givin" ! O'Neill some little trouble, and St. Cormac refused for a time to go down Generally speaking, they were a welii behaved lot at the post, and the barrier I appeared to ascend to a perfect start. , lho.se I picked out as prominent in the early stages were Overseer, Grave Fairy, Sir Gallahad 111., Jarvie. Milton, and iVY estmead, but a furlong from home 1 Jarvie was done with, and the favourite 1 gradually forged ahead, while Evander , had improved liis position. For a stride or two the latter kept alongside Sir Gallahad Til., but it was obvioush- only ;on suffrance. and O'Neill soon "let out , a reef" to land the Frenchman home an I easy winner, amid the cheers of his ' many supporter*. Evander and Grave Fairy gained second and third places respectively on merit, though Sir Greysteel was travelling very fast at the finish, and would have been placed in another titty yards. Of the remainder. Overseer and" Crubeninore did best, while Drake, Condover. and Soval can be said to have been never in the raceThus did France. England, and Ireland fill the respertivc leading positions. Our friends across tbe ("barncl engineered a fine roup, and P ; r (Jallabad's easy victory fully justified their exceptional confidence. The truth is. T fear, that our own horses, on the whole, are ; moderate, and we shall be hard put to lit to keep many of our principal prizes J in the country this season."

Jockey Club and other officials who subsequently have the task of framing the weights of English and French horses (says an English writer) will | probably refrain from underestimating the value of the. form across the water -in the future. The percentage of French I victories in big handicaps is becoming : almost alarming, the win of Sir Gallai had 111. recently supplementing those of JEpinard in the Stewards' Cup and Rasa Prince in the C.sarewitch Stakes last season. Whatever the state of India politically at the present time, it is aa | earthly paradise for racing men, according to three jockeys, who recently returned to Australia, says a Melbourne , writer. They are George Lambert, ; Mick O'Brien, and C. Perkins. "It is not the white people who figure most prominently on the courses—the natives are the greatest gamblers in the world," said Perkins. "They punt heavily, and with a large amount of success." O'Brien ; thinks that racing in India is at a higher level than in Australia. Their stay in Australia will be brief, as they i have engagements for the Indian monsoonal season, commencing in Ji*Jy. George Price is sending The Cypher to Windsor to-morrow for a spell of a couple of months. That horse has done well since being in Sydney, and althuoga beaten, ran a good race in the City Tattersall's Cup. He is to be accompanied to Windsor by the two-year-old iWhizbro. Windbag, another of Price - j horses, is spelling at his owner's place iin Sydney. Additions to hia team are [Collaroi, who was purchased at Inglis* sales for 650g_s, and Caveat Emptor i (Magpie—Aries). Collaroi ought to be a good proposition if properly placed. Price recently purchased J. Burton's stables at Randwick, and he went into his new quarters on Monday last. Sir Gallahad TIT., which successfully inaugurated the French "invasion" at Lincoln recently by winning the Lincolnshire Handicap, won five times as a two-year-old, being beaten in bis two first races and winning the others. Last season he ran on thirteen occasions, four of his efforts being rewarded by victory. His most noteworthy achievement was that in the French Two Thousand, which he won, while later he was narrowly beaten by Le Capucin and Niceas in the French Derby, after making most of the running. He was greatly fancied for the Grand Prix de Paris, but he became entangled in the tapes after a false start, threw his jockey, and bolted. He avenged hia defeat by Nicea3 at Deauville in the late summer. Subsequently Captain Cohn's colt was easily beaten by Filibert de I Savoie, was unplaced in the Gold Cup at . (liaisons Laffitte, and then ran third to the crack two-year-old Heldifann. Lord Airlie, the owner -of tbe Liverpool Grand National winner, Master j Robert, is better known in military than in raring circles. He was wounded in the Great War, was mentioned in .dispatches, and was the recipient of the j Military Cross. He succeeded to the title Jin 1900, when six years of age. Lord I Airlie married a daughter of the Earl !of Leicester in 1917. The Hon. A. Hastings, who trains the winner, will best be remembered as the trainer and j rider of Ascetic's Silver, who carried off the corresponding race in 1906, while he was also responsible for Ally Sloper, i who won in 1915, and Ballymaci-l, who (scored in a substitute "National" at G-atwick. Trudgill—who is also named I Robert—has been riding for a long I time, hut has never been included among the "fashionable" jockeys. The | Grand National last March was far and j a way his most important success, and so excited was he that he collapsed afterwards and had to receive medical attention. He soon came round, however. The Argentine has been the largest buyer in the English blood stock market for a number of years, and Argentine breeders buy nothing but the best available horses. There the totali.sator is the betting medium, and stakes j are very valuable. Breeders in the (Argentine, as in the United States, j would not be prepared to pay fancy [prices for sires unless they were cerItain of being able to get their money back. The totalisator provides such [good stakes that owners are able to jgive big prices for yearlings, and race I them with a profit without having to I bet. In recent years Argentine breeders have purchased in England Tracery j ( £53,000), Cyllene (_25,000), Cragainour (£30,000), Jardy (£30,000), Val dOr ( £28,000), Diamond Jubilee (30,000 guineas), Polar Star, Kendal, Petermaritzburg, and Your Majesty. The cheapest of them exceeded in value any horse exported from England to 'any country where the bookmaker | flourishes. The prices received by breeders for their yearlings do not suggest that the totalisator is likely to bring ruin to the industry, as some of its opponents claim. Last year one i stud sent up thirty-seven yearlings. I which made an average of £1253, and ! another thirty-three for an average : price of £1144, and a third contributed ; seventy-seven to the sales, and received |£971 apiece. I The committee of the A-T.C. made a ■ rod for its own back when it opened i a special totalisator in the members' i reserve (says "Poseidon"). Nowadays there is no more crowded portion |of the racecourse. The crush around the stand of the most j popular bookmaker is a stately procession compared with the squeezing which is inevitable between the main stairway and the totalisator windows in the members' stand. The queues in 'front of the pay-out windows have not dwindled away before those which are formed before tbe pay-in windows aro •in position for the next race, and they make a human diagram such as we have set up for a game of noughts and 'crosses. The queues are as denselypacked as sardines in a tin, and are orderly eunuch near the windows, but towards their ends, what with people who have invested trying to get out, and those who desire to invest wanting to pet in. all is inextricable confusionIf twice, or even three times, the area were available it would not be too much. But there's the nil}—extra room would probably mean a considerable amount of reconstruction in the official stand, ft is a problem ( eonfronting the committee, which has to realise that its most optimistic expectations as to the extent to which the totalisator would be used have been exceeded.