A GEUELLING RACE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 7, 8 July 1938, Page 13

A GEUELLING RACE

QUADROON SURVIVES BEST

If any evidence was required as to the dragging state of the track towards the close of the day's proceedings it was provided by the Parliamentary Handicap. The mile and a quarter took the remarkably slow time of.2min 29J secj which is about ten seconds outside the average in the winter at Trentham. Such figures must be near a record for slowness in recent years in the Dominion. Only twice, previously have slower times been registered at Trentham* when Income won the. Parliamentary in 2mln 36Jsec in 1925 and wliea Coronetted won the same race in 2tnin 33 2-ssec in 1912. So adhesive was "the ground that two horses, Last Refrain and Air am, could b.ar,ely reach the post. They had stopped to a walk in the last furlong artfi were taken over direct to the birdcage - gate. Brazen King also just j reacJaed the post, passing one: other pair as they came "to a standstill. RIVAL MUDLARKS. Form is nevertheless evidently quite reliable at times on such ground, as the two horses who finished first and second in the Whyte Handicap, Arctic King and;Quadroon,, again' filled the two first positions, but in reverse order. Quadroon was at an unexpectedly good price as fif th!.:win favourite, and it was surprising t.d find Arctic King better backed than his victor on this- machine.! These>two horses have on three occa-. sions/Tecently fought out a finish, witn Quaaroon twice taking the honours, j Quadroon was', always one. of the leaders.., He was in front for the first half-mile, when Monipere. ran past him, and he then followed Monipere to the straight, with Airam outside him. He assumed charge passing the false rail, with Arctic .King challenging on the inner. Arctic King. went up and down on a bad patch, and when shifted out on the track he found Quadroon going too well to be caught. Quadroon has recently come into the form that was expected from him as a three-year-old. He was a difficult horse to train on hard tracks earlier in the season, but since the ground has become soft he has given his connections little cause for worry. When he opened his season's account in the .main hafck event at Feilding at Easter , the track was bad,.and conditions were also at their worst when he beat Arctic King at Otaki. If he can be kept right.during the' coming spring he may win one of the big cups. Now four years 'old, Quadroon is a" brown gelding by Nigger Minstrel from the Lord Quex—Lovematch mare Liaison, so that ne belongs to the same -~famjjy. as Nones, Menfiaus; WotaC'ahd others • have .. already""- made famous. -■■. Lovematch herself. was a good performer, winning the Wanganui Cup and other races for 'Mr. H. H. Pharazyn, of Hastings, who bred and also rides Quadroon, as well as Quadroon's full-sister, Florence Mills, who brilliantly won her first three races early ■ in the present season. Lovematch also . left Liaison's full-brother Motere, who - won the Auckland Cup for Mr. Pharazyn"and his racing: partner Mr. M. Greenwood. Last season Quadroon early looked like being an exceptionally, good Jhree- ■ year-old.- At his first .start for the - term, after three unplaced runs as a juvenile, he ran a dead heat 'with Philexnup in the Waikato Hack Cup,and, after being beaten into third place in the Takapuna Pupuke Plate, won by yesterday's big dividend-payer, Sweet Rose, he won the Hack Cup at Waipa. A third in the Great North-, em Derby followed, but he then could not be raced again till near the end . of the season. Transferred- to T. L. Wilson's -stable on the death of W. Stone, he failed to -recover his best form till Easter, though at the Wellington Spring Meeting last October he ran good seconds to The Bigot and Royal Minstrel. His record now comprises five wins in 25 starts for £1542 lOi,

TWICE KUNNER-tJP. Arctic King, who was runner-up to Enge in the.same race last year, once again showed his. liking.for the course and for bad going. He was last but one early, but he received a good passage through on the fence in the ' middle stages. He was already fourth on reaching the straight and came through by the same route as he did in the Whyte Handicap; but-there was a morass beyond the false rail that completely anchored him. Struggling out of the slough, he had lost his opportunity on the rail, so he» was switched out on to the track. He then easily caught Monipere, but he found Quadroon left with too much still in hand, and he had J ~ Psibmit to a length's defeat. General Ruse yi^s the only horse among the others able to come' on over the last section. He dropped back early - but finished well from the top of the straight to run into third place, only a short length from Arctic King. As rank outsider he was at -a good place price. ~-'•' . Monipere, unlucky at the start t the Whyte Handicap, was always 1: the running in yesterday's Parliamentary, but after assuming charge six furlongs from home and leading into the straight he weakened out of the money. It looked as if his rider might have been too keen to reach the post. The rest really require little comment. Conveyer could not raise the finishing effort he produced in the Whyte Handicap, but he was never foing as well as he was on the first ay. The hot favourite Enge, the winner last year, went right off the track when he began to move up from the rear, and he was half the course out entering the straight, which more or less accounted for his failure. Airam stopped to. a walk in the straight. Last Refrain and Brazen King'appeared all at sea under the conditions that prevailed. .