RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30073, 6 March 1963, Page 20

RANDOM REMINDER

THE FRONT PAGE STORY: (5) Racing

From Stud and Stable

With the Royal meeting at Riccarton now but a page in racing's long history, attention is centred on the autumn circuit in which many Riccarton gallopers are engaged. But it date not seem, at this stage, that southern horses will make any greater impression on the North Island tracks than they have in the last few years. It has been a bad vear for racing at Riccarton, with the conviction of so S owners for various meanours, and their subsequent disqualification. But local stables have also been hard hit by the refusal of some jockeys to ride training for some owners. The rights and wrongs of the dispute have been fully discussed in this column recently, and need no repetition; but it is an undoubted fact that with the lack of recent exercise Riccarton riders are beginning to look like the Bunter family. There are one or two more promising aspects of' recent developments at Riccarton, however. One bright hope for the North Island meetings is Nobbled, the four-year-old son of Dark Night, out of Cosh. This rather spindly-looking hack has not been to the races since the spring of 1953; nor has his owner, Mr

D. L. Deadbeat, whose recent release for good behaviour has hastened the preparation of Nobbled for a stiff campaign. Another with high hopes of success is the wellknown owner-breeder, Mr J. N. (“Needles”) Outsider. A man who has spent almost his whole life in the Riccarton stables, he has a remarkable reputation for being able to convert the most unlikely-looking sort into a potential winner overnight, or in the early morning. Mr Outsider has a team of four and a new hypodermic for the North Island tracks, and he should add something to his already impressive record. Knock Knees, winner of £ 184 in stakes last year, will be standing at the stud in Fendalton next season. It was st one time thought Knock Knees might have to be destroyed, but the prospective purchaser regarded Knock Knees as having rather too little condition, and so a change of duties was arranged. Knock Knees is by Bandycoot out of the well-known classics winner Rickets, whose family goes back to the top American galloper Say Bud (WhatchacockHowdy), both the sire and the dam descending from the Kentucky

Derby winner Blue Nose, which was by Rheumitics out of Sorts, the mare’s line going back through Blasphemy-Top the famous Halls of Montezuma and Ragwprt-The Rake to X plus Y equals Z. Riccarton racegoers will remember with affection the outstanding jockey of the days after the First World War, Clarence Golightly, who died recently m Sydney, Th® extraonlinary thing about Golightly*s success th*t he never saddled a horse, during his long career, with his own weight below 14 stone. There were complaints, never substantiated, from les. successful keys that it was this comparatively massive build, and an earlier career as a professional boxer, which kept Gohghtly at the top. But those who saw hun only on the course could never doubt his mastery. He was an extremely vigorous rider, who perhaps used the whip more generously than the of today might allow; one jockey beaten back into second m a race at RiccVto7 in 1923 said, as he wiped his bleeding face, that there had been nothing like it since Ben that was how Golightly won his familiar nick-name.