Funds Put Cup Trip In Doubt

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32099, 22 September 1969, Page 1

Funds Put Cup Trip In Doubt

4N.Z. Press Association)

WELLINGTON, Sept. 21.

The champion galloper, Ben Lomond, may be scratched from the Melbourne Cup. His owner, Mr E. Montgomery, said tonight that he would withdraw the horse on Tuesday unless the Reserve Bank allowed sufficient funds forthetrip. Mr Montgomery, aged 85, said the bank had allowed only $6OO of the $lOOO needed to take the horse to Melbourne. Ben Lomond is among the favourites for the rich Flemington two-mile race. Mr Montgomery said in a telephone interview from his Rotorua home that $lOOO was the bare expenses for Ben

Lomond to contest three weight-for-age races and the Melbourne Cup. He said the Reserve Bank had first offered $9l and after an appeal to his bank man-, ager this was raised to the present $6OO. “But the bare expenses amount to $1000,” he said. "There would not be a shilling over from that. “I have been in racing all my life, just waiting to have a horse like this to take to Australia. For months and months I have just been living for the time when we get there. And now this. “It makes you want to pack up and go to some other country.” Mr Montgomery said he had promised “the Inland Revenue people” he would give $5OOO to a hospital charity if they could prove that any other New Zealand trainer had taken a horse to Australia this year “on the same financial basis.”

Ben Lomond is due to leave for Australia in the Maheno on Thursday. “I am already up for the ship fare and this is one reason I have to make the decision by Tuesday,” Mr Montgomery said. Australian racing officials would not like it if Ben Lomond was scratched. “They enjoy getting our best horses over there.” he said. “It stimulates their competition.” Mr Montgomery has taken several horses to Australia in his long association with racing. “But nobody bothered when you went across in the old days,” he said.

He said he had pointed out to the authorities that Ben Lomond could win between $50,000 and $70,000 in Australia, and that wins there draw Australian buyers to the New Zealand yearling sales. “But it made no difference," he said.