Red Handed Firm Cup Favourite

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31520, 7 November 1967, Page 5

Red Handed Firm Cup Favourite

(.Special Correspondent N Z.P.A.) MELBOURNE, November 6. Red Handed, a five-year-old chestnut gelding, is a firm favourite to keep up the remarkable run of New Zealand-bred horses and give the Adelaide trainer, J. B. Cummings, a record hat-trick of Melbourne Cup wins today.

Puntei - s and bookmakers alike appear to regard the cup as a match race between Red Handed and the Sydney stayer, General Command. There are doubts about several acceptors, including Ter- ; rifle, and the field is likely Ito be below the safety limit (of 26. A crowd of about 80,000 is expected to watch [the race, which will be the 1107th Melbourne Cup. A record Ss.2nt, including |S2.4m with on-course book-

makers, is expected to be wagered in Melbourne alone on the outcome, and millions more will change hands in other States and in New Zealand, where punters can bet on the cup with the T.AB for the first time. New Zealand-bred stayers! have long had a stranglehold on the Melbourne Cup, having won 10 of the last 15 races and having filled 17 minor placings in that time.

The odds favour their continued success because all but 10 of the 27 horses still in the race were born and reared in the Dominion. Fourteen of the first 16 in the handicap are New Zealand bred. New Zealand-owned horses have had a great deal of pub 1 licity this .year, as always, but recent failures by Stellar Belle and Terrific have lost them support. Stellar Belle is still a 25/1 chance, in spite of the last • minute dash by R. J. Skelton to Melbourne to ride her tomorrow, and many observers believe that after Saturdav’s poor run Terrific has little chance. The other New Zealand starters are the St Leger winner. Jay Ay, which has not so far lived up to his promise in Australia, and the Wellington Cup winner, Red Crest, which made a late crossing and# has raced in Australia only twice. Red Handed <3/l) and General Command (4/1), a half-brother to Straight Draw, which won the 1957 cup, have lasted better than any other cup hopes the distance between the announcement of weights and today. The rigours of Derby Day on Saturday ended the hopes of several supposed dangers to the most-favoured pair.

M. E. Ritchie went to bed at 10.30 yesterday morning to snatch a few hours sleep before returning for another night’s vigil at the side of his I horse, Terrific. i Ritchie had nursed Terrific for |3O hours in a bid to get him i ready for the cup. He planned to sleep for a few hours before going back to Terrific’s stable to continue night-long hot and cold poultices! on the horse’s injured off foreleg. An X-ray this morning showed; that Del Charro has a fracture to the splint bone in his off-1 foreleg, an injury similar to; that which has prevented last | year’s cup winner, Galilee, racing this spring.