AT HIGH PRESSURE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 122, 25 May 1928, Page 5

AT HIGH PRESSURE.

TURF REPORTERS AT WORK—SPEED BY TELEPHONE. sportsman who sits bj r his fireside after tne evening meal and reads (his ."Star' or ."Sports Edition" probably does not realise the expense and trouble which has been incurred in supplying the details of a race meeting or of the early morning gallops at the track. Rising before daylight at all seasons, and hurriedly drinking a cup of hot coffee or tea before going to the track is not always pleasant for the sporting writer, but the experience is considerably worse when a bleak wind, accompanied by rain, is beating down on one. The winter mornings are never enjoyable, but in the summer the conditions are ideal, and the track-watchers are as happy as the larks

with which they rise. In the winter the gallops do not commence till 6.30 a.m., which is three hours later than in the summer. The Press recorder of the track work must know every horse. There are no bright jackets on the jockeys as on race days to tell him which is which. Every horse he must know by its colour, markings-, style of galloping, or by one or other of its many characteristics. There are the various tracks with each furlong marked off by a disc. In gallops on the course proper, times are taken from the barrier posts, but on other tracks the discs are in various positions, and all have to be memorised. The state of the tracks, what are considered good gallops over different distances under the conditions obtaining on any particular morning, these and mapy other things must be known, in order that the sporting readers may be told as much as possible about the performances in the training.

With two stop watches the newspaper man is far from idle. From the moment the lirst horse appears he cannot risk taking his eyes from the track, because horses are jumping off at different posts, and the times of all who gallop at better than three-quarter pace must be ticked off and jotted down. The w£ek before a meeting at Ellerslie is particularly busy. \\ ith visiting horses arriving daily from all parts of the Dominion the job of the pressman is to mentally photograph them and this is extremely difficult.

Whether it be in the suburbs or country, speed and accuracy are the two essentials in getting news to the office on race days. Immediately the horses flash past the finishing post the result is telephoned to the, "Star" office, together with a description of the running, and the order of favouritism on the totalisator. At the other end of the telephone a writer well versed in racing or trotting takes the details, and in almost less time than it takes to tell the "copy" Is being set up on the linotype. For the stop-press column just the placed horses—one, two, three—are flashed through, and the papers with this skeleton

result are on the streets almost before the payout flag has been hoisted on the course. As lat«*r editions are published the stop-press result is lifted out and placed in another part of the paper with full details of that particular race. And so it goes on—accuracy and speed being requisites— until with a sigh of relief the staff men, from racing reporters to publisher, know that the edition containing the account of the last race is out on the streets, and so they go home to their rest.

The newly-developed art of illustration by means of photography has as full scope in regard to racing news as in any department of newspaper work. The camera shows the race at different stages more vividly than any pen can picture, and it is a common practice for the "Star" to appear on the courses with pictures of the earlier races while the afternoon's sport is still in progress.