OTAGO.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 10061, 13 June 1898, Page 2

OTAGO.

Dunedin*, June 6. There is nothing doing about the stables. The horses are afi eased up, and hardly a gallop is to be seen. In a week or two training operations will have been resumed in view of Grand National engagements, meantime the horses are all the better for a rest, and so are trainers and lads. Monte Carlo changed hands the other day under peculiar circumstances. The son of Ascot and Speculation, now eight years of age, was being auctioned, when Mr Maurice Coughlan, the genial and popular host of the Shamrock Hotel, passed through the yards and somewhat involuntarily nodded what he meant to be simply "good day" to the auctioneer. The latter, taking the nod for a bid, promptly knocked down the horse to Mr Coughlan, who has good-humouredly shouldered the responsibility, though he had no idea of bidding, didn't want the horse, and doesn't know what to do with it. I expect by the time this is in print he will have sold the horse. At £22 he surely need not lose much over a horse of this stamp. He is, of course, a back number so far as Metropolitan racing is concerned, but he may pay his way on country courses, and as the winner of the Rangitikei Cup, the Taranaki Jockey Club Handicap, and other leading races in the North Island, his record for breeding purposes reads well. The D. J.C. had not, at the time of writing, received the official rejJort of the Lobo appeal case. Mr Sewell was, however, in town the other day, and I learned from him that, though he went to Wanganui to prosecute his appeal, he was told when he presented himself that his evidence was not required. He assures mc that his investments on Lobo for the race he won came to only £2 ss, and that he had no one backing the horse for him; mdeed, he thought Ned Kelly would win. Young Ray's honeymoon trip to Dunedin ends to-day, and by the mail train which takes this tihe young owner returns to Christchurch with his wife and his new Eurchase, Sequin, The general impression ere is that Sequin will win a good race next season.