SPORTING NOTES.

Press, Volume XLVI, Issue 7350, 1 July 1889, Page 2

SPORTING NOTES.

Bt Spectator. A gentleman from Sydney was present at the Canterbury Trotting Club Meeting taking stock of the trotting horses. He priced Plunger and Wait-a-whlle, but no business resulted. Love for the national sport cannot be said to be degenerating in the old country, Some forty meetings were on the card for one week recently. Chantilly, by Apremont—Miss Flat, and therefore half-brother to Welcome Jack, has been brought over from the coast by Andy Marr, and will be sold privately. He looks remarkably well. The Grand International Steeplechase of SOOeovsruß at Sandown Park, second spring meeting, April 27th, was won by Lord Dudley c aged horse Kilworth, who carried 12st 91b, the three and a half mites in 9rain 27sec«. Capt E. C. Owen rode the winner. Mr Fred Panetti had a good passage to Australia with his horses Bewi and Escapade. Bewi had a go at Oakleighs Park, running third in the Australasian Handicaps of six furlongs on June Bth. Crackshot, the Nordenfeldt-Pungawere-were colt, is one of the most lighthearted youngsters at Biccarton. He is full of life and play, and occasions those in charge of him some anxiety; while the boy on his back must feel a bit uncomfortable at times. Yearaf fcer year the number of two, three and four year olds in training in England has shown an increase, bub the number of five, six and aged horses trained have been on. the decrease annually. Statistics prove these stubborn facts. Chance has been doing good work in the hunting field up Tiinaru way, and is expected to be very well when the big obstacles have to be negotiated next month. Torrent is said to be doing well upcountry, and the Grand National distance is not considered a bit beyond him, indeed he has a few friends who know a good horse, and who swear by him. On the flat he could not stay at racing pace. Constable, who rode Sefton, the winner of the Derby of 1878 and who died about two years ago, was carried on his mother's back to the Epgom races 33 years ago. This was training up the child in the way he should go. We don't see children, unless Maori children, brought to races in this way now-a-days, but children in arms are not yet rare even in these day 3 of cold and wet, judging from what I noticed last Friday. The Dunedin trotting mare, Anneaux dOr is a useful one, but she did not show to advantage on the small course and heavy track at the C.T.C. meeting. Still she had no right to be called on to give Wait- , a-while 5 seconds in three miles. She really held her own for the first mile with Messrs Kerr's fine gelding, but when he got fairly warm to his work Wait-a-while drew ahead and Anneaux dOr died away. From a Wellington correspondent I learn j that a probable candidate for the Wellington Baciag Club's Bracelet is a three-year-old gelding by Somnua, trained by Tom Hill at Island Bay. Age and breeding are in the gelding's favour, but so far he has done nothing worthy of mention. '.He i has been called Sir Maurice after Sir Maurice O'Borke, speaker of the House of Eepresentatives, and will probably be ridden by Mr E. D. O'Borke who rode Leorina to victory in the Auckland Bracelet last Saturday week. Irish King, who has been really first favourite for the Grand National, has done no work to speak of during this week. Without wishing to raise any misgivings as to his prospects of winning the Grand National I may say that he looks none too well on his understandings, and is just now probably causing his trainer more uneasiness than his numerous backers. My Dunedin correspondent writes:—The death is announced of Mr B. C. FarquharBom, veterinary surgeon here for many years, and who in that capacity was well known to many of your owners of horses and trainers. Be bad been ailing for some \ few years past from some affections of the lungs, and was fifty-four years of age at the time ef his death. In connection with the case of Anneaux dOr, reported under the heading of " Vanishing mare," I may mention one of a somewhat eimiliar nature, which came under my notice some nine years ago. A match was made between two well Known North Island trotters, and £10 deposited. One of the horses was placed in the hands of a local livery stable-keeper to work for the match. Shortly afterwards a bailiff seized the other animal, and bringing it in from the country, handed It over at night to the same stableman, with instructions to give it necessary exercise. -The match was to have come off on the following Saturday. The atablekeeper knowing the mare to be in training, took her out one morning while the stars were yet in the heavens, and tried her with the other animal. In the trial the mare proved the better horse, and it was fortnnafce for the owner of the gelding that a tnird party who laid claim to the mare, managed to sneak her away before she was redeemed from the limit of the law, but it was bad luckforthe livery etablekeeper, who had fcp pay the value of the.animal, but who afterwards in turn recovered costs from the person who rescued her. The bailiff was just too late to get the deposit in the match, which was handed over by the stakeholder in the usual course. Thus my confrere " Mazeppa: Trotting seems to be in a fair way to become properly organised as a separate branch of sport in Australia, and the movement will doubtless extend in time to New-Zealand. Indeed, we have already a commencement in the formation of the Canterbury Trotting Association, which is apparently disposed to fully equip itself with a constition and comprehensive regulations for the complete governance of racers and racing, and in the course of a year or two we should have order where now all is riot. The present state of trotting affairs cannot last. It is rotten, in that at ordinary race meetings there is absolutely no supervision of the proceedings, and horses are palled or otherwise stiffened without the feast attempt to cover up the indecency. The consequence is that honest men d themselves at a disadvantage, and if the lack of supervision continues we ehall find trotting abandoned by all who value the approval of a good conscience. The alternative to this disaster is to have trotting races exposed to the fierce light of pubUo and official criticism, and this is only possible by limiting the number of starters. When twenty horses go out for a race, one half can play, all sorts of games with very little chance of being detected. Divide the field by half, and each horse's doings can be watched. As one who would like to see trotting become an institution, I hope to see bodies like the Canterbury Trotting Association formed all over the country, but I would sooner see trotting extinguished than have it as it will be if allowed to take its own course, unchecked, for another year or two.

! To cross the English Channel with a racehorse and run him in France was considered a great undertaking not many years ago, and it was of ten argued that Tiorses shipped on the eve of a race had their chances jeopardised. I wonder what they would think in England of the way horses are travelled about by sea, rail, and road in this country. Howes have been knocked about in trans ir. from Newmarket to Epsom, and this once happened to a Two Thousand Guinea winner, and a Derby favourite who was unable to start for the blue ribbon in consequence of the injariessnstained. Oddfellow, who won the Hawkea Bay Steeplechase last Friday, has dissipated the idea that a horse cannot travel by sea andjland and then rua a great race immediate!/ afterwards. Ibut I confess that I bardly expected him to win 'after the knocking about he received. I don't know whether bis trainer keeps s diary or not. but it would be interesting to note what the son of Painter and Silver Cloud was called upon to do. On Saturday, at Ellesire. Auckland June 15th, he ran two miles over hurdles and J won, and ran three miles and threequarters over some twenty-six fences, falling, during the Journey, on the same day. On Sunday he was, no doubt, rested. Monday and part of Tuesday was spent at sea, and the afternoon and evening of Tuesday he travelled by rail. The whole of Wednesday was spent Iα travelling by rail and road, and on Thursday he won the chief cross-country ' event in the North Island, and returned home to Wanganui next morning. Such travelling is not

calculated to elicit approval from those who have pinned theirJCaith to and supported a horse with their money*, but -Mr McElwain was placed in xn awkward position by the postponement of the Auckland Meeting Mid his pluck deserved to be rewarded. I have known numerous cases of horses being shipped long distances and raced tvithin a few hours of landing, but only she case which beats the particular one under notice. Tommy Dodd, the hurdle horse, was the hero of the occasion I allude to, and it was considered a great achievement at the time; I cannot give the precise day and date but, the gallant old fellow was" being taken to Greymouth by his then owner, Roddy Mclvor, qow in Australia. The weather came on rough and the sea ran high for several days, end the vessel had to lay off the harbor for two days, during which time tommy Dodd was lying down. Fortunately the weather was bad on shore as well as at sea, and the races had to be postponed a day, and the horse was landed just in time to be walked to the course and run in the hurdle race, which he pulled off in flying colours.