PACERS AND TROTTERS

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 104, 4 May 1935, Page 31

PACERS AND TROTTERS

FORM OF INDIANAPOLIS

(Special to,the "Evening Post.")

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day.. Practically all the best-class pacers and trotters have gone into winter quarters, and will not race again until August. Indianapolis tarnished his reputation in the opinion of many racegoers when he was beaten into third place by Hoi lOr and Glenrossie over a mile and a quarter on the concluding day of the Metropolitan Easter Meeting, but there was good reason for his poor showing. No matter how good a horse, or anything else for that matter, may be, it requires to be thoroughly wound up when pitted against the best class. Indianapolis was not. He did not have a searching work-out before the meeting, but it was thought that a race would improve him. When he defeated Roi lOr on the first day he went the first mile at the breakneck speed of 2min 3 3-ssec from post to post, and then had to fight off Roi lOr all the way down the straight, Indianapolis did what no other sprinter in his class has ever attempted successfully. After a slow beginning he was rushed to the front within a furlong and a half, and showed that he could- do it at both ends. Instead of improving him, however, this Herculean effort evidently got to the bottom of him, because he was never moving like the real Indianapolis on the second day. He is still the greatest five-year-old ever raced in this country, and this season he has taken the mile record of 2min 1 2-ssec, and the world's two-miles pacing record for a\ stallion of. 4miri 15 4-ssec.

He is the leading stake winner of the season with £3210, and since he started racing as a two-year-old he has won twenty races, has been second seven times, and third four times. His total stake winnings are £6455, besides the New Zaland Cup and Bullock Lade Cup. His trainer, F. C. Dunlevey, has had a wonderful run of successes with Mr. G. J. Barton's horses, and is at the head of the trainer's list. Mr. Barton has presented Dunlevey with a new car.

At one time hailed as the champion of pacing champions as a result of his four consecutive wins in the principal events at the New Zealand Cup Meeting of 1933, Red Shadow failed badly in the special match races with Walla Walla, Harold Logan, and others, and he also fell a long way below expectations in the- last New Zealand Cup and Free-for-Alls. Red Shadow has been given a long course of road work, arid will be wintered at Nelson by L. F. Berkctt, who will later get the Travis Axworthy stallion ready for National events. Berkett worked some improvement in another of Mrs. Hawaii's hoses, Royal Silk, who finished second to Red Shadow in the 1933 Cup, and he also trains Plain Pearl for the Christchurch sportswoman. ■ War Buoy has been scratched for all ep.gagements at the Forbury Park Trotting Club's Meeting, and his trainer, M. B. Edwards, states that he will not race again until the Canterbury Park June Meeting. War Buoy's unrivalled record is now 12 wins and a second in 13 starts.

Harold Logan was in good condition on his return from the North Island. He will be raced again in August providing there are any short-limit sprint races on the Metropolitan programme. By that time Harold Logan will be thirteen years of age. Hidden Charm, who is carded for both light-harness events at the Amberley Racing Club's Meeting, has displayed quite encouraging form lately. He was finishing on strongly in third place to Grand Mogul and Zest at Ashburton. Hidden Charm was a fair two-year-old, and is only now regaining the promise he showed a few weeks before the Sapling Stakes.