Owner Had To Share In Three-Score Dividend.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 69, 22 March 1941, Page 2 (Supplement)

Owner Had To Share In ThreeScore Dividend.

'JMTK greatest thrill of t ]io recent Paeroa race meeting was the place dividend pair! I.y Mr. Pat Corliotfg noi ieo, Mnnumn, in the. Awaiti Handicap on the first day. It amounted to over three score and must l>e one of the largest dividends pi id for a place since tlie win and place system canio into operation. J here wan the usual gasp of astonishment when the figures went lip on the hoard, and a few excited investors scurried to the hack of the "tote" to collect.

This was Mannma's first race, and her chances we.re not at all fancied by her connections, who did not invest a penny on her. Two sister* of the owner had decided to make up a 10/ ticket between them, but thought better of it and went and had afternoon tea instead.

Altogether £"> 10/ was invested on Mannma oil the win machine and £12 10/ on the place, and she was paying a dividend of over £270 for a win. Among those who participated in the place dividend were a well-known J'aeroa ro.presontati\o footballer and the Hindu sharoniilker of one of the. officials of the Ohinemuri .lot-key Club and his Maori wife.' No doubt the "heathen Chinee'' was there as well. Pat Corbett, owner and breeder of Mannma, is mine. host of the Ilikutaia Hotel, which has been in the possession of his family for over 00 years. His brother Jim was president of the Matnmata Racing Club for many year-, ami is also a breeder, having bought the stallion Dou<:lns Hyde when on a trip home to Ireland recently. Pat's sistc are also interested in tho sport, and they raced the steeplechaser Emancipa tion and other horses. Pat has been breeding race.horses for about .i 0 years, and it is a coincidence that his horse Scat, a brother to the dam of Mannma, paid a dividend of £01 9/ for second in the Vauxhall Handicap at Taknpuna in November, under the old single-pool system of letting. lie also bred and raced Iluskie. Ilikutaia and other good racers. In his tim% Pat w.is an ntlilpf* of many parts and one of the best amateur runners of his day. He has also represented Thames at Rugby football. He is timekeeper for the Ohinemuri Jockey Club and racing is now his hobby.