BIG HURDLES TOMORROW

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31441, 7 August 1967, Page 5

BIG HURDLES TOMORROW

Eiffel Tower Main Fancy

Eiffel Tower may prove the stumbling block for Beyond when the Wanganui jumper goes after the third leg of the big hurdling treble in the Grand National Hurdles tomorrow.

Beyond is set the formidable task of giving Eiffel Tower 81b in the first leg of the Canterbury Jockey Club’s T.A.B. double.

Beyond has 10-13. He won the Great Northern Hurdles in June with 94, and the Wellington Winter Hurdles with 10-6 last month. Other notable achievements in a splendid winter campaign have been his wins in the Trentham Hurdles and the Jumpers’ Flat on Saturday. Eiffel Tower is attempting his second Grand National Hurdles win.

Last year he carried 9-2 and won by six lengths from Beyond (9-1). but it is doubtful if there would have been such a wide margin between them if the North Islander had escaped a freakish incident in the running.

Beyond finished the race with a leg injury, suffered when he was kicked by the falling Grand Coeur fairly early in the race. Eiffel Tower also won the Sydenham Hurdles on the final day of the Grand National meeting last year. CHASING SUCCESS

This year he was put to ’chasing, and he was an immediate success. Eiffel Tower won at his first attempt over the Ellerslie steeplechase course the day Beyond won the Great Northern Hurdles.

Two days later Eiffel Tower won a sensational Great Northern Steeplechase, recovering brilliantly after appearing tn be right out of the race at the end of a mile. When all looked hopeless, Eiffel Tower drew on the speed and stamina that had given him a Wellington Cup victory to win the Ellerslie cross-country race.

These qualities should again make the Kurdistan gelding a force in tomorrow’s race.

Lordtuckey, the runner-up to Beyond in the Great North-

era Hurdles and his conqueror on the final day of that meeting, was a distant and disappointing fourth in the Winter Hurdles at Trentham. But opinions about his prospects may have to be revised in the light of his third behind Beyond and Humber in the Jumpers’ Flat on Saturday. ’ Blue Defaulter, the runnerup to Beyond in the W.R.C. Winter Hurdles, raised hopes for a placed run tomorrow by finishing fourth in the Jumpers’ Flat on Saturday. Blue Defaulter beat Segundo by three lengths and a half in the hack hurdles on the first day of the Wellington winter meeting. Better footing at Riccarton might show Segundo to greater advantage. He beat some good stayers at a mile and a half at Riccarton at Easter. SECOND LEG

Time and Tide, an attractive winner of the Paparua Handicap for the C.J.C. chairman, Mr D. W. J. Gould, on Saturday, is one of the form runners for the Heathcote Handicap, second leg of the T.A.B. double tomorrow.

The only one to get near Time and Ude at the end of seven furlongs on Saturday was Combination, and this six-year-old from Wingatui forms an appealing bracket with Watallan tomorrow. Favouritism for the Heathcote Handicap will probably hinge on the programme planned for the double acceptor, Tinsel. Mr T. C. Lowry’s little Agricola mare finished brilliantly for fourth in the Winter Cup, and had she dodged trouble near the five furlongs she might have won. She is the logical favourite for the Heathcote Handicap if this is to be the race chosen for her.

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