NOTES AND COMMENTS

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9278, 2 December 1895, Page 2

NOTES AND COMMENTS

TBy Hotspub.l

The V.R.C. Spring Meeting has been voted on all side 3 as the most successful reunion that has taken place at Flemington for some years, and the waning glory of the Melbourne Cup has been thoroughly revived. The meeting resulted in the large profit of between £9000 and £10,000, and the leading institution will again be set up financially. The racing on the fourth day was just as full of interest as that on preceding ones, the special feature being the meeting of the Derby and Oaks' winners at two miles in the Fisher Plate. Naturally enough, the filly with the great handicap to her credit, as well as the classic prize, was made the favourite. The outcome of the struggle leaving honours divided appears to have been received with manifestations of the utmost satisfaction. The time taken to compass the two miles was not fast, but the race was really confined to the last mile and a half, and that distance of the journey Wallace, commencing two lengths behind Auraria, is said to have covered in 2min 35see. Equal at two miles the meeting of the pair in the Champion Stakes is already being looked forward to with the keenest relish. How it is that Wallace did not show up better in the Cup is a question naturally advanced after his more recent

display. The answer to this is that he was very badly interfered with and was twice almost down. Since his race with Auraria it is conceded that the son of Carbine inherits all the gamenese of his sire ; he is not perhaps very brilliant but finishes with bulldog tenacity. Some of Mr Gollan ? s string are on their way from Melbourne to this colony. Percy Martin, with The Possible and Bonnie Scotland, are, at latest advices, to come back via Auckland, remaining there over the Summer Meeting, at which the pair mentioned claim engagements. Sternchaser and Bessie Macarthy, at present at Yaldhurst, will be kept there until January, very likely competing at the Wellington Cup Meetiug en route to their homo quarters. Australian form is proved to be too highly valued in New Zealand. Recent events bear out the correctness of this. How wofully Ebor deceived those who estimated he was the equal, not to say the superior, of the best of our hurdlers. Making every allowance for his misfortunes, he could not be compared with a Kulnine or a Liberator. As regards later eases, Musketry, even though he did not get to the front as a two-year-old, was allowed to be a fairly good colt ; it was, however, his Sydney victory that caused him to be regarded in the light he was at the C.J.C. Meeting. And yet, when the winning performance was looked into, it had no great merit and was one that any three-year-old with pretensions to class would have been capable of accomplishing, for Attachment, the runner-up, is a very ordinary handicap horse, and he, the beet in the field, was giving the colt 171b. The running of Musketrj' on the second and third day at Riccarton would show that he was quite overweighted in the Stewards' Handicap on the opening day. Bessie Macarthy is, or was at all events, a good mare, but the weight allotted her based on her best showing in Victoria left her without a chance of success at the recent Riccarton gathering. While the wisdom of the drawers of Trenton in the St. Albans lottery in refusing 7000ge for the horse may well be doubted, I should have thought that there were many speculators who would have gone to a longer figure than that for the "best sire in Australia." When it is said that many breeders in the Old Country are unable to get subscriptions to Carbine, whose list is full for three seasons to come at 200gs, it appears to mc that, however deplorable the departure of Trenton from the colonies would be, there would be little doubt that in a couple of seasons in England the sire of Auraria would more than .pay for himself. There is not much question but that Carbine will be a stud success—is already proved to be so ; at the same time he is not as yet the assured success that Trenton is.

The stakes paid over in connection with the V.R.C. meeting amounted to £11,679, of which sum- Auraria's owner received £4304 10s. Mr W. R. Wilson was second on the winning list with £1325 10s, all due to Wallace's wins, while Hova's earnings reached £1013, bringing his owner third in the list. It is Very seldom that owners, represented by one horse, come out in the winning table as noted in this instance.