A POSSIBLE CHANGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 98, 22 October 1940, Page 13

A POSSIBLE CHANGE

TRENTHAM CLASSICS

TWO-YEAR-OLDS IN SPRING

No club is doing more for the betterclass horse at present than the Wellington Racing Club, and if the times remain auspicious there is a possibility of still another classic being added to the annual schedule at Trentham in the not-distant future. This would be an extra juvenile event in the spring, a divided Wellesley Stakes on the first day, one division for fillies and the other for colts and geldings. The fillies' division would replace the present Taita Handicap and it would probably receive an appropriate name of its own. It has for some time been the view of leading racing men and breeders that the Wellington Racing Club has a splendid opportunity of being the first in the Dominion to have a juvenile classic for each of the sexes, as is the rule in both Sydney and Melbourne for the early two-year-old classics of the season. It is early in the season especially that such a division would be assured of success. When the Wellington Meeting is held in October there has usually been no clash whatever of North Island and South Island juvenile form, and also no extensive meeting of the two-year-olds from the different quarters of the North Island. It is after Trentham that two-year-old form begins to align itself to a standard. On the opening day at Trentham there are two juvenile events at present, the Taita Handicap and the Wellesley Stakes. It is the Wellesley Stakes that finds the two-year-old champion of the early season, but quite often the winner of the Taita Handicap, not infrequently a yo"nfs ter who a classic basis on the first fay the sexes separated, which would then give the handicapper some real sub- % to be M nsid f ed as the present classic and handicap. The experience of the A.J.o. °P""f SIM the other for fillies. It is even possible °f Not Sonly nVould the sexes be kept ap^rt on the Opening day, which should make the races more successful as such, Kse many of the youngsters are hlvins thei? first experience under colours and are therefore on their toes; _ut when they conic together in toe handicaps on the two later days they will tie more correctly weighted man they could have been in a handicap tS^the opening .day because of their revealed form in the two Welle ey Stakes, on-level weights And with the handicaps on the later days, it is I Sost unlikely that any youngster who might otherwise have made the trip to Trentham would remain at. horn? simply because the juvenile racing.on the first day was confined to classics, even if by chance such not been engaged m the particular classic for which he or she was.eligible. The increased value of the extra classic, compared with the Present Taita Handicap, would be a still iurther inducement for filly two-year-olds to compete at Trentham in the spring.