TUFTS OF TURF

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9735, 25 May 1897, Page 2

TUFTS OF TURF

[By the Edmoktal Scissors].

The mandate by which the Victoria Racing Club "warned off" for life Benjamin Nathan appears to have beeu audaciously set afe naught during tha recent A.J.C Autumn meeting, says the Melbourne Age. The disqualifications imposed by the governing body iv Victoria are recognised by the A. J. p., or at-any rate,that has been the impression of the members of the V.R.C., yet notwithstanding the grave accusations of malpractice made against Nathan, and held to have been proved before the V.KO. committee, he was permitted to figure in the paddock at Randwick and bet on the extensive scale for which he was noted during his short association with the Victorian tnrf. How he was permitted to remain on the course after the VMt.C. had banished him from the turf is extraordinary. Even supposing the officials of the A. J.C. did not know him, there was a multitude of prominent sportsmen from Melbourne assisting at the meeting, including at least two members of the V.R.C. committee which condemned him, as well as Mr C. F. Fraser, the stipendiary ste ward, and Mr F. F. Da kin, the handicapper. Mr Fraser apparently regarded it as no part of his duty to call the attention of the A.J.C. authorities to the matter. When spoken toatCaulfieldonSaturday, he said he saw Nathan in the paddock at Randwick on the last day of the meeting, and was astounded. He could not understand how the A. J.C. authorities came to allow him into the enclosure. The matter will probably receive the attention of the V. R.C. committee at its next meeting, when it is expected Mr Fraser, as the officer of the club, will make a report. The remissness of the A. J.C. certainly requires some explanation. At the Carlisle Spring Meeting of '96 Gownsmau threw his jockey when taking part in the Devonshire Handicap, and afterwards plunged into the river, creating no end of diversion on that glorious afternoon by the manner in which he was rescued. At the same annual fixture yesterday (says a London paper of April 2nd) there was a similar experience, only that it was even more sensational. In the Holm fiill Steeplechase Expert bungled at a fence, got H ; of his jockey," and took to the river at tho L. . I of the racecourse. A crowd quickly gathered on both sides, and no doubt prevented i the animal from at once getting out of ; the river, in some parts of which Mr J. M. j Bell's four-year-old was only wading up to the knees, but at other parts, especially near the town bridge, it had to swim for its life. The farther it went the less hopes were there of its being rescued, but just after it had plunged aad- swum underneath the bridge a plucky youth, although, with all his clothes on and hampered by a pair of clogs,' swam out to mid-river amidst tho cheers of the bystanders, and brought the horse safely to the bank. For fully half a mile the animal swam with the fast-flowing tide, and the boy, therefore, deserves every praise for his plucky aid. The London Sporiman says :—" Qnite a novelty in the way of nomenclature is supplied by the Dolce of Portland, who has given the name 0f'450 to his colt-foal by Carbine out of Caithness. The appellation can hardly- be considered inappropriate, but reference to the 'decimal' will no doubt be.more.honoured- in the breach than' the observance in mentioning the name *of the youngster." The name refers to the calibre of a combined rifle and shot gun, the proportions of which are • 450 rifle-barrel and 16-bore shbl-barrel.