SATURDAY'S FEATURE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 63, 14 March 1940, Page 15

SATURDAY'S FEATURE

CHALLENGE STAKES

BEAU VITE'S FULL PENALTY

The Wellington Racing Club's Autumn Meeting, which was opened today, will be concluded on Saturday, when a number of fresh horses are likely to put in an appearance. From the point of view of the club the Saturday is the more important day, as it draws the holiday crowd. The programme contains other feature events, in particular the North Island Challenge Stakes, the Autumn Handicap, and the Champion Hack Cup.

The final day of the autumn fixture gives the staying horses their better opportunity. The Autumn Handicap and the Champion Hack Cup are both run over a mile and three furlongs, and the two-year-olds have the first opportunity at seven furlongs in the Challenge Stakes.

The North Island Challenge Stakes does not as a rule draw a very large field, but often the race is hotly contested and this year's event promises to provide another splendid spectacle. For many years past one has looked for the winner from the two-year-olds. For a change the older horses appear to dominate the situation on Saturday, though a couple of the youngsters left in might nevertheless still prove cheeky. At the final payment for this year's Challenge Stakes nine horses remained in the field as likely runners, and there is a prospect of seven or eight starters, which is above the mean. The weights that will be carried (subject to amendment after today's racing) are as follows:— XORTH ISLAND CHALLENGE STAKES, £ "00 ; i w.f.a. with penalties; 7 furlongs. Beau Vite .... 9 G Disdain 8 11 Duncannon .. 9 2 Chary 612 Amigo 9 0 Lambourn .. 6 12 Beaupartir ..0 0 Locrian ..... 612 Laughing Lass 8 12 The only horses in this list who havel incurred penalties to date are the three-year-olds, Beau Vite and Duncannon, with the full stone and 101b respectively. Laughing Lass has just escaped a penalty. If Laughing Lass, Amigo, Beaupartir, Disdain, or Lambourn were to have won today they would have a penalty on Saturday.

Beau Vite was the winner last year as a juvenile, when he carried a 71b penalty and soundly defeated another two-year-old in Beaulivre, who had a 101b penalty. This year he has the full penalty, but he is a colt who will shoulder all the weight he has. If he had been in today's Thompson he would probably have had top weight, and with it he might have been favourite. He made light of the full penalty of 101b at New Plymouth last Saturday, and over seven furlongs he is a still better horse than over six furlongs. It is believed that he is fully a stone superior horse at w.f.a. than any of those who will oppose him on Saturday.

The last horse to win this race with the full penalty was Karapoti as a three-year-old in 1931. Others who so succeeded wer*e Gascony (1927), Grand Parade (1926), Gloaming (1922, 1924. 1925), Silver Link (1921), Desert Gold (1915, 1916), Autumnus (1913), Bronze (1912), and Achilles (1906). It is therefore no extraordinary task to win the r race under the full penalty. Duncannon, from the same stable as Beau Vite, has earned a 101b penalty, and on anything he has yet done he is not within 41b of Beau Vite, though he might nevertheless hold his own with most of the unpenalised candidates in the field.

Amigo, Beaupartir, and Disdain are of w-f.a. class at .their best, but Beau Vife should give them all a stone on the w.f.a. scale at any distance from six furlongs up. Laughing Lass has yet to show herself other than a handicapper. The two-year-olds require notice, because horses of this age .have succeeded the last five years. But the best of the youngsters are missing this year, and on anything they have done to date Lambourn, Chary, and Locrian are hardly to be compared with those previous winners—Gay Sheik (unpenalised), Wild Chase (101b penalty), Royal Chief (101b penalty), Defaulter (101b penalty), and Beau Vite (71b penalty). It may be that this opinion requires revision after today's racing, but even then Beau Vite should have little to fear from the best of them. Lambourn, a half-brother to Beaupartir, is at least a promising staying colt who should get the seven furlongs, and Chary ran on solidly at the end of his 5J furlongs at Woodville.

The three-year-olds, it might be observed, have not quite the good record in this event that one would expect, though this is probably mainly because the best of the age are not usually at Trentham in the autumn. The race was established in 1899, and only half a dozen times have the three-year-olds won, their number comprising Martian, Bronze, Autumnus, Desert Gold, Karapoti, and Cricket Bat, among whom Desert Gold (dual) and Karapoti (Great Northern) alone were the Derby winners of the year. Against their record the two-year-olds have succeeded no fewer than 23 times. All ages are represented among the winners, Gloaming, for instance, having taken his three victories at six years, eight yeai-s, and nine years. This was the race in which Gloaming, as a three-year-old in 1919, was sensationally brought down at the start and took no part in the contest.