Schooling By Lord Fair

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31627, 13 March 1968, Page 4

Schooling By Lord Fair

•‘The Press” Special Service DUNEDIN. Lord Fair, which will make a fresh start as a jumper at the Birchwood Hunt meeting on Saturday, made a big impression when he schooled over country at Wingatui yesterday in his first school since racing at the Otago Hunt meeting in September.

Mr F. L. Watson’s nine-year-old gelding has come up better than ever this season, and a race on the flat at Cromwell has been of considerable benefit to him. Yesterday he schooled over six fences on the steeplechase course, and he was too good for his stablemate, Tahuna, which is to make a fresh start at the Birchwood meeting. Last winter Lord Fair successfully mixed hurdling with steeplechasing, winning four times as a hurdler, at Wingatui and at Winton, and three times over country. Flowing Gold, a candidate for the President’s Handicap, the first leg of the Birchwood T.A.B. double, will be seen to better advantage now that the tracks have become easier. He was one of the few trialists at Wingatui yesterday, and worked easily alongside his stablemate, Carpenter. Early in the season Flowing Gold won his way out of hack company when he beat Royal Master and Pretentious in the Summer Handicap at the Grand National meeting. He won in open company in the sevenfurlong Telegraph Handicap at the Dunedin Jockey Club’s spring meeting. Flowing Gold resumed in the sprint at the Dunedin meeting last month, and that race will stand him in good stead for his engagement, on Saturday. Carpenter, which has raced twice as a sprinter in his fresh preparation, is in the right order to test the opposition in the Ashburton County Handicap at Ashbutron on Tuesday.