THE RACING WORLD.

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 171, 7 April 1923, Page 19

THE RACING WORLD.

(By

“The Watcher.”)

Mt. "W. G. Stead was in town durinjr the week, and. in a ehat with ‘ The Watcher” mentioned that he has broken in five Absurd colts, a hay out of Shrill, a chestnut from First Class, and three browns from Fluency, Blended, and Steinheil. They are a fine well-grown lot. Mr. Stead has also broken in a full sister to Frosty Morn (Feramorz —Sunlight), winner of Canonbury Stakes (two-year-olds) at Randwick, also half-sister to Radiant Light, Delight, and Good Day, all winners at 'Randwick. A filly by Absurd from the imported mare Neave Agnes, nearly a sister in blood to the Derby winner Pommern, also Director, who ran second in the A.R.C. Foal Stakes and Musket Stakes, has been taken up again. 'lt is Mr. Stead’s intention to take all these horses to Sydney in August next, as he has decided to adhere to his decision not to race in New Zealand under what he considers unfair taxation of racing, allied to expensive railway freights.

Mr. Martin Stainforth, the animal painter, whose drawings and pictures were the feature of the book ‘‘Racehorses in Australai,” has just completed. a painting of the finish of the fast A.J.C. Spring Stakes, in which Beaufort beat Gloaming. Few of the 85,000 who witnessed the struggle will forget the dash up the straight at Randwick, end the wild excitement, when the numbers went up (says “Pilot” in the “Referee”). The picture is twice as large as any the artist has previously painted. The action of each horse has been carefully .'studied, and there is no doubt the artist has depicted speed in line and expression, an aspect not obtainable by the camera. Tho two champions are seen passing the winning post, and are painted in difficult attitudes, all feet being off the ground. Equally studied are the nortraits of the other horses, Specialty, David, Wirrawav. Furious, and Violoncello. These five jiorses have been included to give full credit to this wonderful pair.

li. H. Hewitt, the much-travelled horseman, keeps up his form . remarkably well. Ho is now in India riding for the Maharajah of Kolapur, and at Bombay in February won two races for' his patron.

x Mr. H. W. Brown’s H.ymettus gelding, Wrangle, ran third in the second division of the Flying Handicap at the Hawkesbury meeting on March 24. He was ridden by R. Manson and started " almost the extreme outsider.

In .commenting on the recent Caulfield meeting, the Melbourne “Globe” comments as follows upon a well-known New Zealander:—“To Stan. Reid the Gordon Steeplechase has been a lucky race. Since 1920 he has ridden three winners and a second of the race. Reid won the race in 1920 on Jack Friar, and again scored the following year on Bunroy, whose time on that occasion —3min. 42jsec.—is still an Australasian record for a cross-country race of ‘about two miles.’ Last season Redd piloted Fastolf into second place in this event, and he won again on Gold Coin on Saturday. Reid rides regularly both on the tracks and in races, and he is training a team of ten horses at Caulfield. His stable promises to be prominent in the winter jumping races.”

The cuts Beauford received on his hind fetlocks when he got away from his attendant are healing rapidly, says “Pilot,” but he is to go out of work until it is time to start preparing him for the spring. He -will be spelled in a paddock adjoining his trainer’s stables.

According to advices from England the leading bookmakers state that more women than men are now betting on horse races in that country, and many of them are excellent judges of form. Furthermore, it is stated that the women are easier to deal with than the men, and pay more promptly. In Now Zealand it is safe to say that wtmien patronise the totalisator pretty freely, but probably do most of their betting through their men-folk rather than mix with the crowd round the totalisator. As for women being good judges of form, I know of at least one Wellington lady who not only

picked Battle Scene for the Great Easter, but choso Silver Peak and Kick Off for the milo and a half raco as well.

Mr. Peter Shadbolt, tho New Zealand trotting breeder- and trainer, is s-pending a holiday in Sydney. He took with him the pacer Reindeer and a yearling colt by Native King from Miss Audrey Woodland. Native King is a son of Wildwood (imported). Tho pair belong to Mr. Rokkjer, who formerly raced Reindeer m Sydney. The whole of the horses of the late Mr. B. Shadbolt, father of Mr. Peter Shadbolt, iverei disposed of recently, and tho stallion Native King realised £2OOO.

“Teviotdale” writes of Maid of the Mist, to whom the great Eurythmic had to strike his colours in the C. MLloyd Stakes Maid of the Mist. Is she not a lovely more? Ido not think I am divulging a secret when 1 tell you that when the rider asked the owner for his orders how he was to ride tho Maid against hor famous rival Eurythmic, the answer was, ‘Do not ’ride her. at all. Let her run her own race all the way. Ano. tails she did. You saw her sailing along in front, and you' saw Eurythmic all but catch her. Then, with the jockey of the Maid never asking her to go any faster, you noticed the chestnut began to drop back, and all was over. Maid of the Mist pulled! up beautifully, and looked a picture in the paddock on returning to scale; but you cannot run a mile like that in Imin. 375 sec. without paying something for the experience. You will see this beautiful mare, Maid of the Mist, the living image, only with a sweeter expression, of Desert Gold, win lots of races before we say good-bye to her for ever. You know how closely connected the two are. They are closer than cousins, and I predict that the Maid makes a more successful matron than Desert Gold will ever be. She is more feminine, milkier, more mare-like, and kidlier. Maid of the Mist' is a three-year-old filly, by All Black from Breva. whose granddam Aura is the great-grand-dam of Desert Gold.

Frank Wootton is tho latest of a prominent group of turfites in England to put his reminiscences on paper, and amongst other tilings his defence of the practice of making for the rails in race riding is of interest. Woofton pere was great upon this idea, and Frank and Stanley and every other apprentice who was at Treadwell House wore taught that by seeking the inside their mounts were going the shortest way, and alslo tho straightest. Just out of curiosity (writes “Augur* in “The Sporting Life”) I one season kept a record of races in which, in my judgment, winning chances had been dissipated through slavish adher-

ence to the habit, however, and it amounted to a surprisingly high numlier, and a big proportion of the opportunities were thrown away by mismanagement. Wootton instances a notable case of a big race that was lost by his mentor and subsequently great rival, Maher, as a consequence of the laiiter glueing himself to the rails/ The occasion wps Swynford’s St. Leger. and I shall.always maintain that Swynford. who was very backward even in the autumn of his second season, should have been beaten by both Lamberg, who was ridden- bv Maher, and Bronzino, the mount of Fox. Maher kept the rails for so long that he was eventually “locked in” by Bronzino, and so Swynford, although he was only third on actual merit, just scrambled home. I shall always just as firmly believe, however (continues “Augur”), that Wootton v;as baulked from winning a still more important race, none other than the Derby, through cutting in on the rails when several lengths behind the leaders at the time. That he should have been beaten on Shogun in Aboyeur’s year was just rank bad luck, for in fair fighting he would have ‘scored quite comfortably. And yet it was here shown how wise were the oldtime jockeys who, unless in front at that point, elected to go anywhere but to the inside at the turn into the straight on this, perhaps tho most trappy of all courses, at all events over most of its last five furlongs section. And so. if Wootton had gone to the other side of Aboyeur and Craganour reaching the run-in he would have been clear of the fatal trouble which he eventually ran into.