SEARCH OF JUSTICE

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 80, 5 April 1933, Page 4

SEARCH OF JUSTICE

GOLDEN WINGS'S WEIGHT AUCKLAND CQIVIPARISON

The handicap for the Auckland Easter Handicap serves to . illustrate two points about racing and race handicapping that certainly do not seem to fit in with any system of equity. The one point is that some horses can go on winning and yet not suffer unduly, and the other 'is that other horses have but to win a race or two to be hoisted to a mark at which victory is set almost out of reach. The horses referred to are Golden Wings and Paganelli. The record of the latter ia studded with splendid victories and few failures, at ■ distances from five furlongs to a mile and1 a quarter. The record of the former not only does not bristle with near the same run of successes, but it contains only one victory at seven furlongs and one at a.mile, all o.thers being at shorter distances. In spite of this the Auckland handicapper lias set Golden Wings on 9.9 in the, Easter mile and Paganelli on only 9.6. ' '

Golden Wings might not have been harshly assessed at: 0.9 were it not for the weights given horses beneath him. A good horse should be capable of winning, an Easter at the weight he has, but his task is made doubly difficult when he is picked out as a veritable Triton among minnows, the latter nevertheless being among the nest best horses in the land. At six or seven furlongs it would possibly not have been out of the way for Golden Wings to have been placed at the exalted position he holds, but this does not ■' hold .at a mile, a distance that! he suficessfully accomplished only once. He,certainly established a race record when he won the Great Northern Guineas last year, but since he had consistently failed beyond sis furlongs until he won the fiefen furlongs- Kor^h Island Challenge Stakes recently, a race in" which he was favoured with a very distinct advantage -. at the start. , , ■ On the other hand Paganelli has proved himself a master of all distances lip to a mile and a quarter; and he has shown himself in. form equal to his best this < season by a sequence of excellent victories, including one recently at a mile under 9.6. It certainly does not look as if Golden Wings, in spite of two recent classic successes at seven and ' six furlongs respectively, should be- set above Pagatfelli at a mile. Even at six furlongs, undoubtedly Golden Wingfe's best distance, it was questionable if there is. much between the pair, judged through their recent form. The last start the pair- had was on the final day at Awapuni a fortnight ago. Golden Wings won the Manawatu Stakes under 9.7 in Imin ,14 l-ssec, and Paganelli- won the open sprint under 9.11 in Imin 14sec. From these figures one would certainly not be so bold as to assert that Paganelli's was the better performance, but if a handicapper is.going to consider a record race time in a solitary winning mile effort 18 months earlier in the case of one horse, he should at least take into full_ account the weights carried and times registered- in very recent events under identical, conditions. '■ : ..-.-. ..'■-.■ ■ Golden Wings is a brilliant racehorse of the finest water, and he might win the Easter in spite of the task he has been set, but still that'would/not prove that he should, on performances up to .the present, have been weighted 31b above Paganelli at a mile. . , • ■ ' ' If is worth. noting,, too, .how handicap- I pers may make owners suffer when they j form such highly exalted opinions about horses. Golden Wings has now won just £3557 in stakes. Paganelli, on the other hand, has earned £10,193 in stakes, of which over £5500 was won up to the same stage in his career as Golden wings is now. Yet Paganelli's connection are being offered a better opportunity of further increasing their horse's total than Golden Wings's connections are. : This may be justice, but it will not appeal as such to all.. ■ • .. ' ; ~