"YELLOW PERIL"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 79, 30 September 1938, Page 13

"YELLOW PERIL"

FAMOUS SPRING OF 1905

New Zealand horses have gained many notable triumphs at Randwick in the spring, but there is nothing to compare with the remarkable record of success the New Zealanders had at the famous-1905 A.J.C. Spring Meeting. In that year the contingent sent across the Tasman was not nearly so large as •it became in the years leading up to the depression, but in quality it was hall-marked, and its members, some of whom were sold on the trip, won more than a third of the events decided over the four days. The New Zealanders opened quietly by capturing the A.J.C. Derby with Noctuiform, who was one of Mr. G. G. Stead's team. On the same afternoon Maniapoto, a much-fancied candidate, failed to gain a place in the Epsom Handicap. It was only a moderately auspicious opening of the campaign, but on the second day the visitors let the world know that they were there by cleaning up the whole card of. six races. Machine Gun, sold by Mr. Stead a little time previously, began that day by taking the Shorts Handicap. Then Mr. Stead won the Spring Maiden with Isolt, who was destined to go on and win all nine races she contested that season. Maniapoto (ridden by F. D. Jones, who has Royal Chief and Cerne Abbas at the meeting this year) next made short work of the Metropolitan Handicap field, and the New Zealanders were three up for the afternoon. The fourth race was the First Steeplechase, and the New Zealand-bred Sultana, though not then owned in- the land of his birth, was the winner. After this Mr. Stead stepped in again; and the remaining two events, the New Stakes and the Squatters' Handicap, were captured by his pair, Sun God and Nightfall respectively. The whole six races had thus been won by horses owned or recently-owned in New Zealand. There were still two more days to go and more plums to be picked. On the third day Mr. Stead won the Grantham Stakes with Sun God and the Wycombe Stakes with Isolt, and the' Craven . Plate went to the -New Zea-land-bred Gladsome, then owned by Mr. Sol. Green. Just in case anything had been overlooked, the New Zealanders lined up again on the concluding day, and Mr. Stead's colours were still to the fore^ as Isolt took the Members' Handicap. Long before this the bookmakers had closed their bags whenever a New Zealander was produced, and a race with one of Mr. Stead's horses in it would see the ring calling "Ten to one, bar one," but there was little business. After Isolt had led the field home in the Members' Handicap along came the Dowling Steeplechase. The New Zealander Haydn 'was the favourite, but this usually safe conveyance did not complete the course. However, that did not matter a great deal, because two other New Zealanders, Up-to-Date and Dingo, finished first and second respectively. The finale was Nightfall's cantering to victory twenty lengths in front of her opponents in the Randwick Plate. ■ Many races before that meeting ended the New Zealand invasion had been termed "The Yellow Peril," as the majority of the horses bore yellow jackets, or yellow was a conspicuous colour. Among the latest foalings at the Grange Stud are the following to Phaleron Bay: Hunting Lodge, a brown colt; Emberalto, a brown filly; and Le Souvenir, a brown colt.