TUFTS OF TURF.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9365, 14 March 1896, Page 4

TUFTS OF TURF.

[By The Editorial Scissors.] The Melbourne Sportsman says:—Gipsy Grand is a full-brother to that arrant duffer Nebuchadnezzar. Both claim Grandmaster and Naomi as their progenitors; but, Avhereas the first-named is evidently a first-class racehorse, tbe namesake of the disgraced Jewish monarch couldn't win a donkey race, and, after being found to be useless, Avassold by James Lynchfor something like " a fiver," A Sydney Avriter says -.—" The result of Gipsy Grand's Dunedin Cup is a bold advertisement for the Duckenfiekl stud, where he was bred. Gipsy Grand's ancient sire, Grandmaster, is still on the top of the earth, and, though he is blind, he is still capable of stocking Avell. Gipsy's dam, Naomi, is a very fine mare, and this year will send up a half-sister to the Cup winner, by Australian Peer, for sale."

What part of the horse's foot comes first to the ground asks an American paper! Many different answers have been given to this apparently simple question. The majority of unskilled, unscientific observers believe the toe first touches the ground. Others hold that the foot is laid flat down, no one point first touchins the ground, and a few have long held that the heel comes down first. Fortunately, says a veterinary authority—who has always maintained the latter opinion, and for many years has made the structure of the horse's foot and the art of shoeing a special study—it is not now necessary to argue this question on a theoretical basis. Instantaneous photography has shown that on level ground, at all paces, the horse touches the ground first with the heel. This fact, he says, gives significance to the structural differences we find between the front and back portions of the foot. At the back of the foot we have the wall thinner than elsewhere; we have the movable elastic frog, the lateral cartilages and the frog pad. We hare in fact, the whole series of soft and elastic structures so arranged as to provide a mechanism best adapted to meet shocks and avoid concussion. Whilst drawing heavy loads, or ascending or descending hills, the horse may vary its action to suit circumstances, and then we have the exception which proves the rule—sometimes the heel and sometimes the toe is brought first to the ground. American inventive genius was ever wonderful. The very latest development of it applies to racehorses, i.e., a means of making a horse go as fast through mud as on good going. It sounds incaredlble, but according to this story, a two-year-old won a race at the recent Baltimore Meeting, and the way he ploughed through the mod surprised everybody. The track is of a clay soil, and the rain had made it so stiff and heavy that few horses faced the starter. Yet this particular youngster fairly revelled in it. When he had won hia race.it was noted that bis

j feet were plastered with some Avhite stuff, j and there was no little commotion. On j inquiry it was found that his owner had I filled his feet with lamb's tallow. The grease j threw the Avet earth off like aa-ater off a duck's I back, while the other horses " cupped " the j mud and were held. Some men considet this method a " fairy tale," but not so our f selves, says a London exchange. Let tin sceptics try it and report results.

When the late Captain HaAvley Smart wrote "Bound to Win," perhaps his most successful racing noA-el, exception was takei: in some quarters to the fact that in the ston the two colts— subsequently the respectivi Avinners of the Two Thousand Guineas and the Derby—were both foaled Aery early on the morning of New Year's Day. I ('•Ranger") remember it being pointed out in a review at the time—l think in Bell's Life, but I am not quite sura what paper if was—that for tAvo colts to be foaled at the same stud in the early hours of the first oi January was so ultra-phenomenal an occurrence ks to ba practically impossible. Not beyond the fact that it gave the author the opportunity of representing the owner qs being in a great state of anxiety lest the foal should make its appearance just before midnight, and thus by turf laAv count the age of a year for the life of an hour, Avas there reallj any object in introducing such an unusual incident into the tale. Nevertheless, for all i its rarity, a case of the kind does occasionally occur. It did so this year, and on the Ist of January, just before six o'clock in the morning, Mr Craig's Empreiis Frederick foaled a brown colt to Prince Rudolph at th» Cobham stud. "Ranger," the English Avritin-,«doas not lose many opportunities of having a tilt at the starting machine. Thus his latest note:—The muoh vaunted starting machine has failed again. At Ballavat- during the. spring meeting the famous button was duly pressed, and the word "go" given. The favourite, hoAvever, became entangled in the Avobbing, and in his struggles succeeded in unseating his jockey, with tho result that he AA*as soon galloping all over the course. A desire to join his companions, however, soon oA-ertook him, and racing after the field he brought himself into line and finished third. To call the "barrier" a machine soeras a libel on that term, seeing that machines seldom fail to perform their task. At any rate the number of mistakes seem scaroely to Avarrrant the extravagant praise given to the Australian method of starting. I fancy the Californians will riot put up with those, little ecoentrioities of the barrier in the same easy mannor as our colonists appear to do. Far more is to be said for numbered saddle-! cloths, and I see that principle has been someAvhat extended, as at the recent meeting of the Australian Trotting Club-held in Melbourne, numbered badges were tied round the arms of the jockeys, a custom Avhieh has long been in use here in almost every kind of competition oxcept racing.

When Derringer was about to be shipped for England it was stattjd that the son of Musket was going to the Cobham stud. " The Special Commissioner " of the Sportsman, in chronicling Derringer's arrival on January 23rd in England, says:— *' I confess, however, that I am at a loss for an answer when asked the destination of Derringer. Information came to hand that he was en route, for this country on board the lonic, and at that time! was advised that the enterprising Mr W. Pftllin was to secure him for the Athgarvan stud, and so boast poss93sion* of the only Musket horse in Ireland* but this information turned out to be wrong, and on casting around for Avho the wily breeder may be who has stolen a march on so many and been the first to get a Musket horse here (sirfce the arrival of Carbine),! am half inclined to suspeot Dr. Freeman of the Heather stud; not. because I know anything, but because, he is one .of the .few breeders who are cosmopolitan in their iaea 9 of bloodstock. If my suspicions should turn out to be correct, I am sure he is heartily to be congratulated on his determination to keep abreast of the times. I have spent to-day in trying to see Derringer, but I always missed him, and must confess to failure. If Dr. Freeman has capped his exploits of bringing back Retreat and PeppM and Salt by adding one of Muskeg's good sons to his stud, I think he deserves all possible support from breeders *o reward him for such a plucky and hazardous venture."