RACING Foot Injury Could Not Stop Gallant Mannix

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31501, 16 October 1967, Page 4

RACING Foot Injury Could Not Stop Gallant Mannix

Class, but above all, great courage, carried Mannix to victory in the Wellington Guineas at Trentham on Saturday.

Mr H. McCarvill’s Gigantic colt walked away lame in his near fore foot after beating High Delight by inches in the Wellington Racing Club’s feature spring race for three-year-olds.

The foot trouble has ended plans to run Mannix in the Harcourt Stakes on the final day' of the Wellington meeting, but it is not known yet whether it will cost him starts in the Waikato Guineas and the Foxbridge Plate at Te Rapa.

There were no X-ray facilities available at Trentham on Saturday, and the seriousness I of the foot injury could not: be established. A farrier removed the plate! on the tender foot soon after: the race, but the colt was: still sore on it an hour and: a half later. Rider’s Tribute "Game—and then some,” said Mannix’s rider, J. Rior-I dan, describing the colt’s gal-i lant battle under difficulties! and in the face of High De-!

j light s sustained challenge in I the straight. i Riordan said that Mannix was obviously in difficulties i with his leg three-quarters of a furlong from the post, yet he had pulled the race . out of the fire after being headed twice. ' “If he had been on four sound feet he would have ikept going away from them,” Riordan said after Mannix’s game all-the-way-win. I “When I hit him in the Great Northern Guineas he just bounded away from Elbejay. Today it would have

been no different—if he had been all right.” Mannix ran the mile in Imin 38jsec, the third fastest in the official records, and half a second slower than Tawhiao’s record run in 1957. He was privately timed to run the mile in lmin 38 1-5 sec, the last six furlongs in lmin 10 l-ssec, the last half mile in 48 4-5 sec. For looks and temperament Mannix dominated the fancied division of the Guineas field. Seven of the 11 runners were chestnuts—an unusually high percentage—and they filled second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth positions.

Sharp Run High Delight was excited before she left the birdcage J

but she had vitality left to make a sharp run up to Mannix in the lead, and she lost little stature in going under by half a head. Bompa was passed fit to run after being under treatment for leg trouble during the week. The Hawke’s Bay Guineas winner looked spare in condition and his connections were given permission to run him in rubber-lined plates.

W. D. Skelton had to check Bompa slightly when Mannix rolled about in the straight, but the Levin jockey did not think this cost him a winning chance.

Bompa was in a gap of three lengths in third place. Bompa will be spelled now. He was a late foal and with time to shake off the effects of a troublesome leg he could be a force in big sprint races next year.