ROYAL COUNT PICKED TO WIN STEEPLES

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30802, 14 July 1965, Page 4

ROYAL COUNT PICKED TO WIN STEEPLES

High-weight Fancy Is Smoke Ring

Royal Count and Confer are selected to win jumping races at Trentham today, and Smoke Ring, a star jumper, could be a winner on the flat.

Smoke Ring will be trying for his sixth successive win when he runs in the Kilbirnie High-weight today. His great stamina and ability in bad ground might bring him out on top, even with 11.1.

Smoke Ring has been kept to flat racing since he won the Great Northerns double early in June.

This might continue to be his programme for some time because his owner-trainer, Mr M. C. Conway, and at least one handicapper are at variance as to what the chestnut should be carrying in steeplechases.

One of Smoke Ring’s toughest rivals today could be the Te Rapa four-year-old Lord Snowden. Bred from a half-sister to the good winner. Gold Scheme, Lord Snowden has been entered for the big spring races in Melbourne. He is trained by A. McGregor. who prepared Even Stevens to win both the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups. Royal Count is expected to be the best of a moderate lot in the Matai Steeplechase today. Royal Count could not find the pace to get near Cretan but his third in the Wellington Steeplechase had its merits as a Matai Steeples pointer. The fact that the Matai topweight, Montgomery, has only 9-8 indicates the weakness of the field. Confer showed he has mastery of a heavy track with an easy win in the Vittoria Hurdles on Saturday, and a rise of 101 b should not beat him in the Corunna Hurdles today. There will be an on-course double on the Juvenile Handicap and the Matai Steeplechase. Canterbury will have more

runners in the Juvenile Handicap than it did on the whole first-day programme. Krazikid, Pee Wee. and Seminole are last-start winners from Riccarton in the field, and they may lose nothing by comparison with Big Dipper and Fair Linda, the northerners with the best records.

Big Dipper has not raced since June 7, when he beat Fair Linda by a length and the others very easily over six furlongs at Wanganui. Fair Linda has made that form look very good by winning three times since. Kumai and Maria Mitchell will be a very popular combination for the T.A.B. double, which is on the Parliaihentary and Members’ Handicaps. Harvest Fair (Seatoun Handicap) and L’Arc (Petone Handicap) are other bright prospects on the programme. L’Arc showed his qualities as a mudlark when he won the Trial Plate at this meeting a year ago. He is right at the top of his form for today, having won at the Manawatu meeting at his last start. That win followed two seconds.