HURDLE RAGING AT THE DUNEDIN MEETING.

Evening Star, Issue 7386, 5 December 1887, Page 3

HURDLE RAGING AT THE DUNEDIN MEETING.

. TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—The outspoken remarks of your sporting csrrespondent rc the hurdle race on Saturday, and the remarkable difference in the form displayed by Trapper’s romping in as compared with his stern chase of the loaders on Wednesday under exactly the same weights, must commend themselves to every honest lover of the sport. There should be little matter for surprise at the small fields competing hurdle races when performers such as those who from conStout practice are clever, and know every flight of hurdles and every turn of the course, besides being fast on the flat, are thrown in meeting after meeting, till it becomes only a question of fitness and being meant to make a certainty of winning. The remedy for this is in the hands of the handicapper. Take Trapper’s latest performance. He is beaten at Oamaru for small stakes by a third-class horse, goca_ to j Christchurch, wins a brilliant hurdle race in a large fiield, tuns nowhere the second day; after this is literally thrown into the Hurdles in Dunedin in a small field; starts a favorite, and never runs within twenty lengths of the leaders at any part of the race, and is disgracefully beaten. He is handicapped again at the same we ght, goes to the front at the start and stops there the whole distance, and wins easily. He should never have had less than lOat 101b, as I contend that a best performance and not his worst should be borne iu mind by the handicapper. Contrast the treatment of this horse with Canard, Borderman, and Moody. Their weights never wont down for a loss or two. Also the unjust treatment of Panic—that coach horse for a sma’l win had his weight risen nearly two stone. It must have been pretty well understood by the public tbat the first day’s racing was not Trapper’s form, or he would not have been thought worth a twenty to one chance on the second day, instead of which he paid only a small dividend.—l am, etc., A Spectator. Dunedin, December 5.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—l was greatly surprised to read your remarks about Trapper’s alleged reversal of form on the second day of the Dunedin races, and I must ask you to allow me to differ with you entirely. On the first day the distance was only a mile and a-half, and Trapper was outpaced from the start; on the second day the distance was two miles, and the leaders did not make the pace anything like so fast, thereby enabling mv horse to get well on his legs arid hold his own with the other horses all the way. It is a well-known fact that Trapper is a better performer over a long course than a short one, as was very recently proved by his running at the Christchurch meeting, when he won the two-mile Hurdle Race, but was unplaced in the mile and a distance Hurdle Race on the second day.—l am, etc., J. Toole. Dunedin, December 5,