IMPRESSIONS BY HECTOR GRAY

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 91, 14 October 1922, Page 15

IMPRESSIONS BY HECTOR GRAY

Hector Gray, the New Zealand jockey, in a letter to a friend in Australia, says he is going well/in England, having won 23 races this season. ■ He does not get much riding'outside the stable by which he is retained, but had two rides at the Liverpool 'Cup Meeting, and was successful in each. ■ The papers are writing him up well, as the clippings ens closed bear out. Gray mentions that Barney Page pulled off a big publicity stunt, but he did not expect it to do

Barney any good. o ln that conservative country, you must produce the goods in advance. How good a prophet Gray' was will be gauged by the fact that "Australia's leading horseman" is already back in Melbourne. The Maorilander won the Liverpool Cup. on a horse named Eagle Hawk. Donohue rode the favourite, Starthford, which ran second. Gray had trained his own mount, and the owner had £1800 on it.

Hector states that the horse is in the Goodwood Cup with 9st 31b, and would be a certainty, but he would rather not run him, as he has an eye on the Cesarewitch, on which a fortune could be won.

Another from the stable, for which he is pretty well trainer, jockey, and general manager, is Morning Light, who is in the Goodwood Handicap with 7st sib. This is another cant-lose, which will be ridden by Brown, the ex-Sydney jockey. There are 23 horses in^the stable for which; Gray rides. Orpheus, described by the New Zealand boy as "the best horse in the world," has gone wrong, but he hopes to "get him right for the Champion Stakes or Cambridgeshire. Remembering a. recent racing result, Gray's concluding words . were prophetic: "I have never seen Beauford, but I know he would have no chance with Orpheus. The horses here are far above" the New Zealanders, while the Australians are little, 'if anything, better than those of my country. Isle of Wight is only a fair horse here, f and he would give Gloaming or Soultline 2 stone."