SPORTING

Evening Star, Issue 15308, 7 October 1913, Page 5

SPORTING

DUNEDIN JOCKEY CLUB’S RACES. [By Old Identity.] The meeting starts to-morrow. First race at 1 p.m. The course looks very nice, and it is, good going. The public have the option of nine trains out, the first at 9.5, the last at 1.15. The only scratching so far is Oxenhope out of the Electric Handicap. Evidently there are" going to bo strong fields. Eight have paid up for the Hurdles. Coronetted may start favorite. Margo won a race the other dav, and Coy got home in the Hack Race at the Hunt Club. Redwing looks pretty fit, and Black-and-Brown has some who like his chance. The Dunedin Stakes is for two-year-olds, and what they can do in public is quite a guess. Hion the Mosgiel Handicap. There are signs that The Cornet and St. Aidan will be backed, but it may be a'pretty even betting race, for even Aphtea is whispered about as a possible. So far as is known, the eight left in the Dunedin Guineas will start. Ogier, Warstep, and Soipniform arc the names one hears most mentioned, and Martins is as good-looking as any of them. In the Electric Handicap wc have quite a number of recent winners, such as Sea King, Palisade, Teviotdale, Martel, and Stamboul, and perhaps the winner mav not be included in that quintet. It looks' like an open race.

The English filly Madama is in the Taioma Handicap, but she will need to gallop to win, for ■ Eidelforip. Gunflash, Brooksdalc, and other candidates can speed along. The October Welter includes 'a really good lot of seasoned racers, and there should be a fair field to wind up the day s sport. FOOTBALL IN FRANCE.

An important letter has. been received from Paris asking for the Australian rules of football, and expressing the view that the game would suit the French temperament. I remember (writes “Woomcra” m the ‘ Australasian ’) landing in Marseilles some years ago, and seeing people clinging like a swarm of bees all over the cable They were going to a football match, and it made me homesick. It was jnst like dropping into the dip at JcliA nation which, before the advent ot Carpentier, used to use its feet habitually for boxing, ought to shine in our, or indeed .m any, game of football. But expressive as the French language may be, I see a difficulty in acclimatising the'terms. Are there equivalents in French for “ mupire went dead—done us in—got ’em in the bag—a blue duck ” —and other figures oi speech which appear to be necessary to the knowledge and full enjoyment of football?

The Dunedin Homing Pigeon Club flew a race from Amberley (230 miles) on Saturday. The station master liberated the pigeons at 11 a.in , and they arrived home at 4.30 p.m.—a very good performance. The result v as; IV. Yates’s Black Diamond, 5h 27min, 1; W. Tattersfield’s Independent. 5h 26imin, 2 ; J. Ringrose's Beragoon, 5h oOimin; and T. Veitch’s Undecided, 5h 31min, equal, 5. Aleconner, the winner of the Epeom Handicap at the Australian Jockey Club’s meeting on Saturday, is a. four-year-rdd brother to Mala, who won the Newmarket Handicap in 1910. Aleconner has not dc.no much racing. He won a handicap in the autumn as a two-year-old, and lest season his only success was gained in the Boutko Handicap, at the Autumn fleeting of the Victoria Racing Club. Gigandra has been unlucky enough to run second in two consecutive Epsoms. In 1912 this champion sprinter was beaten by half a neck bv Hartfell.

The stewards of the Hawke's Bay JockeyClub definitely decided to fall ih with the recommendation of the stipendiary stewards and bar High Pressure from further entry until hj? has shown evidence of possessing better manners. We have teen one or two horses down this way that might ha similarly dealt with owing to their persistent trouble at the post. The A.J.C. meeting will be continued at Randwick to-morrow. The principal event is the Craven Plate, of 2,000 sovs, in which Emperndor, BerragoOn, Gigandra, Radnor, Beau Soult, Soltano, and Duke Poote claim an engagement.