CLASS OF HIS OWN

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 91, 19 April 1939, Page 13

CLASS OF HIS OWN

BLACK BANNER'S QUALITY

The steeplechasers produced at the Riverton Meeting were not a^ good lot, and the treble winner Black Banner was in a class of his own, says a Southland writer. He has now. won at his last four starts, and a-feature [of his recent racing has been the perfection pf his jumping. The only semblance of a fault he made/at Riverton was in the Great Western Steeples, but he quickly recovered after that pardonable lapse and went on to Dump better than ever. , When first raced Black Banner did not last out his races too well, but with age he has come very solid and at Riverton, even despite the 12.9 he had to carry on the final day, he looked as if he' could have gone on almost indefinitely. He put up gooa times in each of his races, in the Riverton Steeples on the middle day registering record figures for 2J miles over the Riverton country. Much of the credit for the improvement this Balboa gelding has made since he went out for an enforced spell last winter is due to his trainer, P. J. Boyle, who has had charge of him since the days he was first produced in the hunting fields. His Riverton form was good enough to suggest that he will play a big part in the important jumping events later in the year. He has the complete make-up of a leading steeplechaser, as he is a grand stayer, an accomplished jumper, and able to act in good or bad going. Black Banner was bred by Mr. O. Suttoh and was purchased by his trainer, P. J. Boyle, for Mr. A. C. Mills for £50, as a four-year-old. Now nine years old, he has been racing since he was five, and he has already won ten races and been placed eleven times for ! £2043 in stakes.,