BIG ASCOT HANDICAP

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 142, 17 June 1937, Page 11

BIG ASCOT HANDICAP

FAIRPLAY'S HUNT CUP

Dnlted Press Association—By Electric Tele- >' graph—Copyright (Received June 17, 9.30 a.m.) LONDON, June IC. On the second day of the Royal Ascot Meeting the following was the result of the ROYAL HUNT CUP, a handicap sweepstakes, with piece of plate valued £100, and £2000 added; second £300; third £200; 7 furlongs and 155 yards. R. Middlemas's b h Fairplay, by Fairway—Mountain Crag, by Stedfast, 4yrs 1 H. G. Blagrave's b h Couvert, by Apron—Taslon, 4yrs 2 J. Pi Hornung's b g Pegasus,-by Pommern—Lady Phoebe, 6yrs 3 Thirty-three started. Won by a neck; head. Winner bred at the National Stud, and trained by P. Allden, Newmarket.

Fairplay, winner of the Royal Hunt Cup, one of the most important handicaps and regarded as one of the biggest betting races in England, has proved a bargain for his popular owner, Mr. R. Middlemas, who is a cigar merchant in a big way of business. He was purchased as a yearling for £450, proving somewhat of a disappointment in his earlier career. He had six starts as a two-year-old, for a second and a third, and as a three-year-old last season ran eleven times, being second in each of his first three starts. He scored in the Duchess of York Stakes, run over seven furlongs, at Hurst Park, on July 24, and had two minor placings later, making a consistent if unlucky record.

This season Fairplay, as far as the records show, has raced four times. He was unplaced in the Lincolnshire Handicap, of a mile, on March 17, and was beaten a head by Remember II over a mile at1 Newbury on April 10. He then went on to win the Victoria Cup, a valuable handicap, at Hurst Park, on May 1, scoring attractively by two lengths. Attached to this race, was a gold cup valued at £250, and as the Royal Hunt Cup also carried a valuable trophy, Fairplay's owner has been amply compensated for his exasperating run of luck in other trophy races, his horse having finished secpnd in 'the Esher, Penrhyn, and Newbury Spring Cups, and third in the Birmingham Cup.—"The Barb."