PADISHAH'S DOUBLE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 39, 15 August 1939, Page 13

PADISHAH'S DOUBLE

AND HIS WEIGHTS

MR. CLEM HiLL'S MISTAKE

Padishah has made fame for himself that will go down the.annals of racing for all time, or at least all time that matters. He has also become a striking example for future generations of the futility of handicapping a horse of proven class as anything but a horse of ■ such class while still on the highest | curve of his racing form. ! It has always been maintained that Padishah has not been weighted as a jumper according to his known and currently demonstrated. class on the flat. Twelve months ago that conten- j tion was well borne out by his success! in the Grand National Hurdles. This ] year it has had further illustration in his Grand National double success. It naturally does not follow that, because a horse wins, his weight has erred on the side gf leniency, otherwise every winner would have to be treated as leniently weighted. However, it will always be the belief of many racing men that Padishah _ received a lot less weight than he might have been given in all three Grand Nationals he has contested. If this view is taken, what a mistake the Victoria Amateur Turf Club's handicapper, the famous Mr. Clem Hill, a noted Test cricketer of a generation ago, made when he weighted Padishah for the Australian Hurdles and Steeplechase, /decided during the same week as the New Zealand Grand Nationals! It has been a general rule with Australian handicappers to give New Zealand horses entered for races across the Tasman every bit of weight that they could be entitled to receive. Yet in the weights for the two big Australian jumping events this year Padishah was given only 9.12 in the Australian Hurdles and 10.3 in the Australian Steeplechase. The weights were declared on July 10 and the New Zealand Grand National weights were issued the next day. If Padishah had gone over to Victoria and contested those races in the form he showed last week, what a certainty of racing he must have been there. The Canterbury handicapper was consistent with his last year's weighting of the horse. In the Grand Na-i tional Hurdles, his first race since over hurdles, as he did not accept at Trentham, he put him up 161b to 11.7. And in the Grand National Steeplechase he gave him 11.5. However, this did not truly measure j the known and comparatively recentlyshown form of Padishah on the flat. Last November he won the '.J.C. Metropolitan Handicap, \\ miles, with 8.8, and when the weights appeared for the Auckland Cup, 2 miles, he was top weight with 9.0, giving 21b to Willie I Win, 31b to Wild Chase, The Buzzer,! and Argentic. 41b to Arctic King, and 61b to Round Up. He did not run into the money at Ellerslie, but few will venture the opinion that he was not properly weighted in the Auckland Cup. In that same Auckland Cup, Erination had the minimum, 7.0, and if the minimum had been a stone lower he would still have been there. Yet with country included, he was required to give Padishah 51b in the Grand National- Steeplechase, and, over the smaller fences, he received only 21b from Padishah in the Grand National Hurdles. The same argument, on score of class, could be advanced for Charade and Survoy in those races, neither of whom would be seriously considered with bottom weight in any leading open handicap flat events. A case of a class horse on the flat turned to Dumping in other years was Record Reign, who won the Grand National Hurdles under the record weight of 12.12 in 1900. Record Reign was a six-year-old when he was taken to Riccarton that year by his owner-trainer, the late Mr. J. E. Thorpe. On the flat he was an outstanding galloper, his wins the previous season including the Avondale Cup under 8.2, the A.R.C. City Handicap, H miles, under 9.2; the A.R.C. Prince of Wales's Handicap, 1£ miles, under 9.5; and the A.R.C. Ascot Handicap, Ik miles, under 9.12 (all 6.7 minimum). He was also third in the Auckland Cup under 8.12, which would bring him something into line with Padishah in the season just closed. Prior to going south he had not raced over fences, but the C.J.C. handicapper of that date was taking no chances with him, giving him 12.12 in the Maiden Hurdles on the first day and 12.5 in the Grand National1 Hurdles. Starting favourite, he won the Maiden Hurdles and incurred a set penalty of 71b in the Grand National, whicn he also won on the second day. As a winner of the Wellington Cup, Hawke's Bay Cup, and Coronation Cup, and C.J.C Metropolitan, Padishah, on his flat form, might even be regarded as having been superior to Record Reign: His test year's Grand National Hurdles weight could easily have been up near the twelve stone. When he showed then that he was as capable over fences as on the flat he might at least have been rated such without more ado. Yet, in this year's racing—for he was handicapped over fences before the C.J.C. handicapper had the assessing of him again—he was treated just as any Grand National winner of the previous year would ordinarily have been, no allowance whatsoever being made for the fact that he had made light of the way he had been handicapped when first tried out ! seriously as 'a jumper.