FULFILLED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 90, 18 April 1939, Page 11

FULFILLED.

OWNER'S AMBITION.

PURCHASE OF HIGH CASTE. YET TO SEE COLT RACE. To own a really high-class racehorse, to see his colours carried by the best horse of his age, had been the ambition for many a long year of at least one of the passengers on the Matson liner Monterey, now en route to Sydney from San Francisco. To achieve his desire, this passenger paid as much as £7000 for a two-year-old. To-day he owns the best colt of his age in Australasia, and yet he has never seen him run in a race. Strange, but true. The man, Mr. H. E. Tancred, former New Zealand international footballer—the horse, High Caste.

Mr. Tancred bought yearling after yearling in the vain hope of getting a good one, an outstanding galloper on the race track. He finally decided to buy a proved racehorse. After listening to the exceptionally high praise of Mr. A. J. Mc-Govern's Bulandshar colt High Caste, given by Mr. J. T. Jamieson, Randwick owner-trainer, and Maurice McCarten, famous Australian jockey, both former New Zealanders, he resolved to inspect the horse that had just;, carried all before him in the Dominion.

Got a Great Thrill. The fact that he had just completed arrangements for a visit to America made no difference to Mr. Tanered. He wanted a good horse, and he got a great thrill when listening-in at sea to the doughty deeds of his champion colt. The defeat of High Caste by Reading in the Sires' Produce Stakes "at Randwick on April 8 was a bit of a jolt, Mr. Tancred admitted to a "Star" reporter, but it did not interfere with hie appetite, and he was fit and well to lieten-in to the result of the Champagne Stakes on Wednesday last, when his colt turned the tables on Reading. Mr. Tancred had a most enjoyable time in America, but he confessed disappointment in the racehorses he saw there and in the jockeyship displayed. "I did not see Seabiseuit or War Admiral," he said, 'Mint the horses I saw •racing at Santa Anita—the movie stars' track near Los Angeles—and at Tan Foran, San Francisco, did not strike me a<3 out of the ordinary.

'■The three things that did impress me about racing there was the cheapness of the sport, the distance spectators are kept away from the horses, and tlie unorthodox way jockeys are allowed to ride. The boys ride their mounts out of their boxes at the start and never let up striking them. Whips are used from the neck to the rump. As far as I could see, race riding appeared to be a 'free-for-all' once the horses jumped out. Such riding would not be tolerated for a moment in Australia or New Zealand.'"

Mr. Tancrcd remarked that the race tracks in California are of dirt, and that they are harrowed after eacii race. Many meetings extend over long periods, and at Taji Foran there were twenty-one days' racing in succession. Betting ran to an enormous figure, and it was all conducted through the totalisator. There were magnificent appointments at the Santa Anita track, but it was impossible to buy into the main stands, the accommodation in which was all reserved for the movie stars and their friends. Football Record. Before the war, Mr. Tancred was in business at Petone (Wellington) and he won fame as a footoaller, both Rugby Union and League. A Petone Club player he was a member of the Wellington team that took. the Eanfurly Shield from Taranaki in September, 1914. In 1919, after changing over to League, he was a member of the New Zealand League team that visited Australia. Subsequently, he was reinstated as an amateur at the same time as Karl Ifwersen. In 1923 he represented New South Wales against W. T. Parata's New Zealand Maori Rugby side. Mr. Taiiered and his brother have been residing in Sydney for a number of years, and they have extensive grazing interests in New South Wales and are also in business as wholesale butchers. "I was a bit sorry for the Auckland trainer, E. S. Bagby,in losing such a fine horse as High Caste," said Mr. 'fancied just before the Monterey sailed, "but 1 1 found some consolation in the fact that j £.500 of the money paid by me was to ( be given to him."