RACING Quick Time, McCool Good Riccarton Pair

Press, Volume C, Issue 29702, 21 December 1961, Page 4

RACING Quick Time, McCool Good Riccarton Pair

McCool could be the “handicapper’s risk” in the Dunedin Jockey Club Handicap, first leg of the double at Wingatui on Saturday. This big Riccarton galloper has been given 7-4, 41b above the minimum. Sixteen months -have passed, and he has had 17 races since his last win, the Canterbury Jockey Club’s August Handicap, but he has raced well at times for minor placings, which include five seconds, the most recent of them in the Hororata Cup.

About this time last year McCool was carrying good weights in provincial handicaps. and he had top-weigh*, of 9-0 when he ran Thumper very close in the 1960 Hororata Cup. Failure to improve on minor placings this year has been responsible for a steady drop in the weights. He carried 8-8, or 71b above the minimum, into second place in the Hororata Cup this year. The state of the track rather than his position in the weights could have the most important bearing on McCool's chances on Saturday. He seldom does himself justice when the tracks are hard, and the ground was firm at Wingatui up to yesterday morning But if there is a change in the weather and enough rain to ease the track. McCool will be hard to beat. Underarm was scratched vesterdav for the Dunedin jockey Club Handicap, leaving Quick Time top-weight in a field in which only 91b separates the Riccarton veteran and those on the minimum. Quick Time is one of Riccarton’s leading stayers, and has been racing remarkably well for a gelding now in his eleventh year. Consistent Since he won at Orari in the spring. Quick Time has raced four times for as many placing? in strong fields. The first of them was a fourth in the Watkins Handicap at Trenfham. Next time out he was third to the good staying three-yea~-o<d. Burgos, and Magic Circle in the Buchanan Memorial at Motukarara. And form from that meeting proved of some value a week later when Burgos won the New Zealand Derby and Quick Time ran third behind Quite Able and Nerula in the New Zealand Cup. Quick Time's other race at the Cup meeting was the Metropolitan Handicap. in which he finished fourth. Closest to Quick -Time in the weigh's in the first leg on Saturday is Kelton, a War Game gelding from D. P. Wilson's Wingatui stable. Won At Gore He beat a fair field of middle distance horses with ease at Gore in October, and was then classed as a strong “giha-weieht possibility in the New Zealand Cup. He finished in the middle

of the field in the Cup. and this .confirmed that be is not a boy’s horse, because of his tendency to hang. Four days later, in the more experienced hands of R. J. Skelton, he ran third behind Gay Defoe and Studio in the Fendalton Handicap, one mile and a quarter. Then he failed in the Metropolitan after hanging badly again early in the run home. The Wilson stable picked up the totalisator double on this programme last year with Kelton and Llanmai. And there is no doubt Irrepressible will be a firm fancy for the second leg on Saturday if Kelton wins his second Dunedin Jockey Club Handicap. Southland Form Roseafr and Solus were easy winners in open races at Invercargill on November 18. and both will have strong backing.

Roseair won over 11 furlongs in runaway style, and Solus showed he could sprint well when he won over seven furlongs by a length. Matlock and Super Glen are other last-etart winners in the field. Matlock looked as if he would be good in open class when he won the 1060 Riverton Cup. but there have been many weak runs on has record in the meantime. He won narrowly against the milers at Beaumont at his latest start. He did not beat a very strong lot, but winning form is good form, and further improvement is not unlikely. Super Glen, a five-year-old Super gelding from 'Wingatui, showed he was fairly strong in stamina in winning the Otaio Plate over a mile and a half, on the last day of the New Zealand Cup meeting.