Grand National Week

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21858, 11 August 1936, Page 10

Grand National Week

By to-day many hundreds of visitors will Have settled temporarily in Christchurch to take part in the sporting and social diversions which make Grand National week an eagerly anticipated break in the year. The indications are that this week is going to be the best experienced for many years. Hotels report ah almost unprecedented rush on accommodation, and if the weather holds fair, money will be circulating freely and rapidly in Christchurch before the week ends. Some, of course, whose optimism is greater than their judgment, will be somewhat poorer during the next few days, but on the whole nobody is likely to come to

much harm. Those whose interest in racing is of the Jess mercenary kind arc sure to have

delighting hours at Riccarton; there’are good fields in most of the races, and there is plenty of room for differences of opinion about the merits of the horses. The, Grand National itself has special attraction as a sporting spectacle alone, and there are many who will have pleasure enough in seeing the best of * the jumpers in their arduous struggle for supremacy. There is, however, the other side to racing, and with the general improvement in totalisator figures throughout the Dominion, it is anticipated that the Canterbury Jockey Club and the New Zealand Metropolitan Trot-* ting Club will make spectacular returns to predepression figures. This is only one more sign of a financial recovery which has not been due entirely to the earnest machinations of politicians' it is part of the natural process of economic evolution. Causes of freer spending need not be studied too carefully in relation to Grand National week. The fact of confidence is enough, and it will enable thousands of people to escape for a few days from the routine solemnities of business life.