FAVOUR FOR WAIPARI

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29268, 28 July 1960, Page 4

FAVOUR FOR WAIPARI

Well Treated In Cup (From tn, Australian Correspondent of -The Press"! SYDNEY, July 25. The Victorian handicappers have given the New Zealand trainer, J. Wickliff, an open invitation to forego all races and concentrate on the Caulfield and the Melbourne Cups with the five-year-old gelding, Waipari. In the Caulfield Cup Walpari has 8-6 and in the Melbourne Cup 8-7. By comparison he has 8-13 in the A.J.C. Metropolitan. The difference of opinion by the three handicappers is all the more apparent when it is realised that each one of them had Tulloch to handicap as top-weight. The A.J.C. handicapper gave Tulloch 10-2 for the Metropolitan, run over one mile and five furlongs; the V.A.T.C. handicapper gave him 10-4 for the Caulfield Cup; and the V.R.C. handicapper gave him 10-1 for the Melbourne Cup. All handicappers agree that the best of the New Zealand entrants for the big spring races is Fair Filou, which is on 9-2 for the Metropolitan, 9-3 for the Caulfield Cup and 9-1 for the Melbourne Cup. The treatment of those two horses is almost identical—in fact it is remarkable that the three officials should be so close to each other in the handicapping of a horse they have never seen. It is all the more remarkable, therefore, that the A.J.C. handicapper should give Waipari such a high rating confoared with the handicappers in Victoria. And the answer may be that the Victorians neglected the form on Saturday when Waipari won the S.T.C. Winter Cup, bne mile and a half, at Randwick, whereas the A.J.C. handicapper, having seen that race, rightly assessed Waipari as one of the best stayers seen out for some time. Brisbane Form

The Victorian assessment of Waipari seems based on the gelding’s form in Brisbane where he was second in the Moreton Handicap and second in Tattersall’s Cup, both run over middle distances. It was a very different Waipari which ran at Randwick on Saturday and made a fair field of stayers look very second rate performers. The race was run at a veyy fast pace early, and Waipari’s rider, T. Hill, treated his mount as a stayer and let him run his own race while the others clapped on the speed.

Hill did not make a move until the half-mile was reached when he sent Waipari along quickly. At the top of the straight Rock Mai and Tranquilette, the latter the winner of the race last year, weie in front. Each is a stayer and each was travelling particularly well at the time. Waipari joined them without an effort, and when Till really set his mount to gallop, Waipari ran away to win pulling up. The horses had scarcely returned to the enclosure before an Inquiry was made of Wickliff whether Waipari could be bought. The man behind the move is one of Sydney's richest owners, who does not hesitate when he wants a horse to carry his colours—and at the moment he has not one horse likely to develop as a stayer.

Wickliff told the inquirer that he did not think Mr J. G. Sutherland, of Hamilton, would sell Waipari because he had refused very big offers when the horse was winning races in New Zealand.