NEW ZEALAND JOCKEY

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 25, 29 July 1922, Page 15

NEW ZEALAND JOCKEY

EPSOM AND YARMOUTH. (IROM OBR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) - ,; LONDON, 9th June.' On the third day of the Epsom meeting Hector Gray was riding Mr. B. Bell's Polymagnus in the Riddlesdown Selling Plate (seven furlongs). He brought the horse in second to Bart Snowball. Polymagnus drew No. 1 position, and when he came about 200 yards from home he went round on the inside of the field.' When he was about two lengths in front the horse swerved, and ■ran into the rail. The course itself is downhill and slopes in toward the rail. Polymangus is a big, heavy horse, arid before Gray could draw him up he got the former position on the rails at No. 1. When this happened he was two lengths clear of the field. Polymagnus always swerves under pressure, and this has previously occurred when other horsemen have been riding him. However, after the race the New Zealand jockey wasj called to the stewards' room and cautioned. Mr. Bell, the owner, saw Lord Lonsdale the following day, and gave tlie history of the horse previous to Gray's riding him. The explanation was accepted, and Lord Lonsdale allowed Mr. Bell to make a public in the English newspapers. "Trumpeter," in the Sunday Herald, said : "I thought that the Epsom stewards dealt somewhat harshly with the New Zealand jockey, Hector Gray, for not keeping a straight course on. Polymagnus. The horse is a big, awkward fellow, much given to lurching about in his l'acee. If lie was at jfault here he certainly did nof interfere with anything else in the race. Polymagnus is a useful plater, nevertheless, especially over six furlongs."

Since then, at other meetings, Hector Gray has had considerable success. At Hurst Park he brought Lady Cunliffe Owen's Isle of Wight home first in the Middlesex Three-year-old Handicap, winning by a length and a-half. Of this event the. Daily Telegraph remarks : "The starting price of Isle of Wight, 4_ to 1, was surely absurd, bearing in mind his credentials by comparison with those of the others.- He had a fair weight, but even so it was astonishing to find Allure preferred tc him in the market. He beat his half-dozen opponents in a canter by a length and ahalf. It might have been six lengths had his jockey lared. This is a good horse with the conditions as they are now. and in point of looks he is quite handsome, and will probably do even better before the season ends."

At the first cay of the Yarmouth meeting this week Gray won the Great Yarmouth Maiden T.Y.O. Plate, with Mr. R. CoombeV Moro; also he came first in the Hastings Maiden Handicap, riding Sir H. Cunliffe Owen's White ■Satin. Yesterday he led the same owner's Polybius to victory in tho ■Sandringham Maiden Plate. Hector Gray goes to Paris this week•end in connection with the Grand Prix meeting. Mr. T. H. Lowry ran Paradise Duck in the" Whitsuntide Sprint at Hurst Park, the jockey, being M. Beary, but he was not placed.