INGLORIOUS DEFEAT

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 87, 9 October 1935, Page 8

INGLORIOUS DEFEAT

PAEROA'S "CERTAINTIES"

(Special from "Early Bird.") : AUCKLAND, This Day. Quite a lot has been made of the fact that the Taumarunuißacing Club's programme lor its meeting at Paeroa Hast weekend had been drawn up without any provision: for penalising or rehandicapping winners, especially when .Imamint,' Royal Secret, and Tin Lap had won at Avondale after their Taumarunui weights, had been disclosed and consequently their original imposts could not be altered. : . ..

Imamint had won the open seven furlongs the first day: at Avondale under T.B, and on the second-day she had led home the ifield in the principal handicap event of;the .day. She was engaged - in- the ■Taumarunui Gup with 7.1, and actually carried 7.0 iin last Saturday's . contest. - ■-:..Of course, she was a- very warm favourite for was she not receiving 91b from another fan cied candidate, Gay ,Rose,. .whom she had defeated at Avondale while receivingonly 41b? : This ;was a further advantage for Imamiiit of >51b.

In the\ Taumarunui ; Cup, however, Imamint could finish only a moderate third, even Gay Rose finishing ahead of bet, while Baroscope won It was interesting to see how these' thre* horses would fare in the handicap event 911 the second day, but the handicapper did the only thing possible, that of ignoring Imamint's Taumarunui Cup form. On the second day Imamint was asked to concede Baroscope and Gay Rose lib and 61b respectively, thus set to meet them on much worse terms than . when they had defeated her in the Cup contest.

I The other Avondale winners to fail at Paeroa were Royal Secret and Tin Lap. The former was very decisively beaten by a fresh horse in Solomon, and in fact she only'just scranibled home I ahead of Bgllbroney to show a slight profit to her supporters on the place ; machine. She. like Imamint,. and also I Tin Lap, was not produced again on I the second day. .

Tin Lap's decisive defeat in the hack sprint on-Saturday completed the total discomfiture of the Avondale winners and their host of .financial admirers, for she was one"of the-last to make the home turn in the hack sprint and she finished in the ruck, being ninth in a field of twelve. It can be said in accounting for Tin Lap's success at Avondale .that .: it was in a large measure due to" the wind. " ' ;

That day at Avondale it was blowing very strongly down the straight, right into the faces of the horses, and this made the last two and a half furlongs a hard struggle. Tin Lap is not a big mare, and she was sheltered behind those in front for most of the way up the final stretch, pulling out near the post when the wind had stopped the leaders and then outpacing the field in the last short dash. ,

But whether the wind or not was responsible in her case, the fact remains, and it will go down in Turf history when these matters come up for discussion and argument, that Paeroa in the spring of 1935 saw three "racecourse certainties" go down to inglorious defeat.