FRPM STUD AND STABLE “Old Firm” Returns To Business In Australia

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30210, 15 August 1963, Page 4

FRPM STUD AND STABLE “Old Firm” Returns To Business In Australia

The “same old firm” is going into business for weight-for-age races in Australia. Sky High and Wenona Girl, both probably past their best, were two of five runners in the £1750 Canterbury Stakes, 6f, in Sydney last Saturday, and were beaten into minor places by Kevejon, a four-year-old trained by a partowner, who is a Newcastle bus-driver.

Many Australian writers can often claim to find swans where there are only geese, but Kevejon has not captured the imagination, even with this win.

The Australian correapondent of "The Press” was certainly not impressed. 'Now is the time, if ever there was a time, when owners of the top-class horses in «ew Zealand should nominate for the weight-for-age races in Sydney and Melbourne," he writes. By the look of them, he •ays, the members of the “old firm" are not going to be hard to beat this season.

“Past Their Best” “Sky High and Wenona Girl, in Sydney, and Aquanita. in Melbourne, surely must be past their best," he writes. “Even Lord, whose racing days should have finished two seasons ago, is to be given another try, and W. R. Kernball would not be doing such a thing with his old love if he did not know that the gelding had every prospect of winning more races." It all sounds very encouraging for connexions of horses like Humquh, Tatua, Key and others that have shown their class at weight-for-age here, as well as winning against the best in handicaps. Uumquh is now eight, but he has not had the racing of many horses half his age, and Australians might find it costly to take his chances lightly in big races at the Melbourne spring carnival Good Start Tatua has started his four-year-old racing with a brilliant win under 10-3 against the sprinters at Whakatane. and it seems that last season's top-ranking three-year-old has made normal improvement with age.

Tatua is now on the second line of favouritism for the Caulfield Cup. With him are

Lei and three Australiantrained horses.

Summer Regent is outright favourite for both cups.

The Australians are prepared to take a risk with Key as a stayer and have dropped her to the third line in the Caulfield Cup and the fourth line in the Melbourne Cup. There will be more quick changes as spring racing gets under way and plans are completed.

An announcement of definite plans for Lei will also have a marked effect on the market

The chances are that the brilliant Winter Cup winner will be back at Riccarton for rich races at the Canterbury Jockey Club’s meeting in November. Interest In Riccarton Interest in this year’s New Zealand Cup meeting quickened with the recent announcement of stake increases for big races on the second and third days. The C.J.C. might have started something. Since then the Auckland and Waikato clubg have announced stake increases, too, and their programmes this season will be more attractive than ever. A North Island racing man who was here for the Grand National meeting feels the Canterbury Jockey Club would be rewarded further if it made a switch in its programmes, and staged the New Zealand Cup on the last day. “That means putting it back for a week, and a week doesn’t seem a long time, but it means a lot when you are trying to get a horse ready for the first and probably the toughest two-mile race of the year,” he said? Rushed Programmes This owner says that owners of some of the good North Island' horses don’t feel like rushing things to have their stayers ready to run two miles early in November when they wish to have them at peak through the Auckland Cup meeting and until the Wellington Cup in mid-Janu-

ary. Perhaps the situation could

be met by leading up to the two-milers by putting on the Canterbury Gold Cup, one mile and a quarter, on the first day, and the Metropolitan, one mile and a half, on the second day. Then there would be a progressive increase in the distance, giving trainers two more races to bring the horses right to their top for a very strenuous race. There is nothing revolutionary about keeping the big staying race of the meeting for a later day. Auckland stages its Cup on its third-day programme, and the Melbourne Cup is on the second day of the V.R.C. meeting.

The quickening of public interest as the form unfolds on the first and second days of a C J.C. cup meeting would compensate for the wrench brought about by a departure from tradition.