BETTER THAN BEST

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 26, 1 February 1933, Page 4

BETTER THAN BEST

SILVER SCORN'S. RATING

Discussion in the South at present centres about the weight that the Dunedin Jockey Club's- handicapper, Mr. A. L. Canter, has allotted .Silver Scorn in the Dunedin Cup, run over one mile and a half. Her f-,2~ represents 181b above weight-for-age, and it places her at the top of the liit with -31b more than Gay Crest. -..■'.

When Nightmareh won this race as a three-year-old, he was awarded 3.0. He won easily by three lengths in 2min 32 1-osec, beating Pink Note (8.6), wh ko, as a four-year-old, had won the race the year previous with 5.5. That season Nightmarch: won ■ six ' of his thirteen races, including the New Zealand Derby,'the following season he won the Melbourne Cup, and the next season the New Zealand Cup, carrying the then maximum weight of 0.6. / . . Nine years earlier than Nightmarch Amythas set the record for weights successfully carried by a three-year-old in the Dunedin Cup, In. that year (1920) he won with 9.1 in a tick, slower time. than Nightmarch. He was, the favourite, and he beat the Chokebore representative^ Night.Raider, .easily by four lengths.- That season was a great one for the,: son of Demosthenes,- for : in sixteen starts; he won twelve >times, including; eight successively. He w,as engaged in neither-Derby. . ; Silver Scorn is, according to this reqkoning,, rated better than either Amythas or Nightmarch at the same age, and- not many will be found who will openly quarrel with this view. In actual figures^ though it is hardly possible to make comparisons between different years, Silver Scorn (with her sex allowa nee) is in. the race at 41b worse terms than Amythas and 191b worse terms than Nightmarch!