CLAIM AGAINST PHOTOGRAPHER

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28896, 16 May 1959, Page 7

CLAIM AGAINST PHOTOGRAPHER

Injury To Horse Alleged

Allegations that a Christchurch free-lance photographer caused the racehorse San Jacinto to run off at the 1957 summer meeting of the New Brighton Trotting Club and injure itself were made in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday morning. Before Mr E. A. Lee, S.M., Marion Rebecca Oakley, a married woman, of Yaldhurst (Mr D. A. Oldham) claimed damages of £399 8s from D. Ross Mackay, a free-lance photographer, of 6 Barrie street, Christchurch (Mr G. W. Rountree).

The claim was for special damages, comprising nomination fees and training expenses, of £149 Bs, and for general damages of £250. Mr Oldham said that at the summer meeting of the New Brighton Trotting Club on December 7, 1957, Mackay interfered with San Jacinto and caused it to run off. The racehorse ran around the track, with one wheel of the sulky and a hind leg over a rail, for nearly a chain until it hit its head against a post and fell to the ground. The horse suffered injury which had prevented it from taking part in the meeting and had precluded the possibility of it taking part in future race meetings Mr Oldham said. As a result of the interference by Mackay, Mrs Oakley had lost the benefit of nomination fees, training fees and incidental expenses paid in respect of the horse, he said. Mr Rountree denied that Mackay was responsible for the injury to San Jacinto and said it was the plaintiff’s servants who were responsible for not fitting the harness properly. Mrs Oakley had not lost any money from the injury to San Jacinto because, he said, it had never won any stake money and, in fact, she was better off because she was not spending any money training it. At the completion of the evidence, the Magistrate adjourned the hearing to allow evidence on the value of the racehorse to be called.