RACING NOTES

Evening Star, Issue 21706, 28 April 1934, Page 8

RACING NOTES

RACING. May 2, 3.—Egmont K.C. May 10, 12.—Wanganui J.C. May 11, 12.—Southland K.C. May 19.—Rangitikei R.C. May 19.—Ashburton C.R.C. Marcli 19, 21.—Te Kuiti R.C. May 28.—South Canterbury J.C. June 2, 4.—Otaki Maori R.C. Juno 2,4, s.—Dunedin J.C. June 2,. 4, 6,—Auckland R.C. Juno 9.—Foxton R.C. June 14, 16.—Hawke’s Bay J.C. June 16.—South Canterbury J.C June 21, 23.—Napier Park R.C.

BIG STAKE WINNERS. ' When Phar Lap died two years ago i—April 5, .1932, to be exact—the depression still ,bad Australia in its full grip. Turf writers then predicted that with the fall in prize-money no Australian performer could have any hope of approaching the total of ** The Red Terror ” or oven that of Amounis for very many years to come. Phar Lap won, in all, £66,738. and Amounis £48,297 10s.' The situation has' changed_ radically again. Not only with the easing of the depression are stakes being restored in Australia, but the celebration of the Victorian centenary will find prizemoney in Melbourne richer than ever before in springtime there. There, have been £IO,OOO Melbourne Cups ere this. Bitalli in 1923 won £10,288 as his share of a Melbourne Cup aggregating £13,288. Carbine in 1890 similarly, won £10,230 (full stako £13,230), Windbag in 1925 won £10,215 out of a Melbourne Cup stake ot £13,213. Sweepstakes and £IO,OOO added money made up. those prizes. Yet never previously have there been such big stakes offered , for the principal events of the other Melbourne clubs as there will be in October and November, 1934. With the restoration of prizc-ilmney generally, and these centenary races specially, any one performer standing out can run into big money very quickly. Phar Lap as a three-year-old won £26,874 in the 1929-30 season. At the same age. Trivalve won £26,320_ in 1927-28. Tn tho latter season, Mollison won £17,318 as prize-money as a two-year-old. Even with reduced stakes tTall Mark last year won over £17.000 in .six months. The total of Phar Lap is admittedly a truly formidable one to equal, and it may well be that he will have as long a reign on top of the list as did Carbine. It was on April 4, 1891, that Carbine completed compiling his total of £29,626, and it was not until Februaru 25, 1922, that Eurythmic, in winning the Caulfield Futurity Stakes with 10.7, on his back, dethroned him.. Yet even if £66,738 proves unapproachable for many a day, some horse may ere long pass. Amounis and reach tho £50,000 mark. It may be of interest to recall the principal stake-winners of Australia and New Zealand. They are;— £ Phar Lap ... 66,738 ■ Amounis 48,2974 Gloaming 43,100 Limerick . • ;.. .... ... 38,7204Heroic '... ... .... .38,062 J Eurytbniic; ... . ...’ ...; 36,891 • Windbag ■- ... ... . ...,., 35,938 , Nightmarch .... 32,137 1 * David, 31,4104 Mollison 30,829 Carbine 29,626 Manfred' 28,830 Trivalve 28,375 The Hawk ... 28,201 Spearfelt 28,173 Cetigne 27,206 Poitrel 26,926 Whittier .; 26,596 Rampion 26,4844 *Ammon Ra 25,5344 Desert Gold ... 23,133 * Value of two small Sydney stakes not available.

Among _ the horses still racing, the biggest winners are Hall Mark £19,729, Rogilla £18,564 15s, Knvera £17.750, Peter Pan £15.935 10s, and Chatham £15,935 15s. As he is only a three-year-old, Hall Mark may be given bright prospects of reaching a big total if J. Holt can get him back to his form of last spring. The following is a statement of the prize winnings of loading performers in Australia at two and three years old: At 2vrs. At 3yrs. Tl. £ £ £ Trivalve, by Cyklon— Trey ... ... 2,055 26,320 ' 28,375 Phar Lap, by Night Raid—Entreaty 182 26,874 26,996 Earapion, by Bossendalc—Royal Pet 10,215 16,269 26,484 Mollison, by Scremond Molly’s Robe 17,318 9,131 26,449 Heroic, by Valais— Chersonese 11,301 14,975 26,276 Ammon Ra, by Limond—Hyades ... *8,686 16,9681. 25,654 g Manfred, by Valais —Otford ... 5,292 15,525 20,817 Hall Mark , by Heroic —Herowinkie ... 5,631 14,098 19,729 Peter Pan, by Pantheon—Alwina ... *Of this sum, £2.835 was won by Ammon Ra in New Zealand. BRUCE LOWE SYSTEM. A. very interesting article on the Brucfe Lowe Figure System and its application to American racing appeared recently in the ‘ Thoroughbred Record,’ a journal published at Lexington, in Kentucky, and wholly devoted to the thoroughbred horse and its breeding. The writer, Mr C. C. Champine, concludes his article with a table showing how the various families have succeeded or failed in the most important American races. Most people who take any interest in horse breeding are aware of the fact that the thoroughbred horses of to-day the world over are directly descended from about sixty mares. Bruce Lowe used the Derby, Oaks, and St. Leger in England as a standard for comparison, and traced back the winners of those races through the direct female line to the tap-root mare. The mare whose descendants won most of these races was designated the No. 1 family, and so on. Many good horses were descended from mares whose descendants did not win any of these classic races, and these original mares were numbered according to merit. In all Bruce Lowe numbered forty-three families, but a German student, Herman Goos, carried the families up to sixty. Many of those numbered by both Bruce Lowe and Herman Goos have died out. Mr Champine Las taken seventy-eight of the best American races as the basis of his calculations. Here arc the results: — 1— The Lavton Barb marc (Bruce Lowe’s Number Four family), 346 races. 2 Royal Marc (Bruce Lowe’s Number Twelve family), 155 races. 3 Burton’s Barb Mare (Bruce Lowe’s Number Two family). 154 races. 4 The Old Vintner Mare (Bruce Lowe’s Number Nine family), 134 races. 5 Piping Peg (Bruce Lowe’s Number Twenty-three family), 119 races. G—Daughter of Massey's Black Barb (Bruce Lowe's Number Five family), 81 races.

[By St. Clair.]

June 23.—Ashburton C.R.C. June 30.—Oamavu J.C. TROTTING. May 3. s.—Forbury Park T.C. May 5. —Cambridge T.C. May 12.—Oamaru T.C. May 12, 14.—Waikato T.C. May 19.—Wellington T.C. Juno 24.—Canterbury Park T.C. Juno 24.—Hawke’s Bay T.C. Juno 9.—Ashburton T.C. June 20, 23. —Auckland T.C.

7 Bustler Mare (Bruce Lowe’s Number Eight family), 81 races. 8— Old Bald Peg (Bruce Lowe’s Number Six family). 72 races. 9 Dam of Two True Blues (Bruce Lowe’s Number Three family), 71 races. 10— Tregonwell’s Natural Barb Mare (Bruco Lowe’s Number Onefamily), 68 races. 11— Royal Mare (Bruce Lowe’s Number Fifteen family), 62 races. 12— Daughter of Gower Stallion (Bruco Lowe’s Number Ten family), 51 races. 13— Daughter of Davill’s Old Woodcock (Bruce Lowe’s Number Nineteen family), 39 races. 14 — Daughter of Gascoigne’s Foreign Horse (Bruce Lowe’s Number Twenty family), 37 races. 15— Tho Scdbury Royal Mare (Bruco Lowe’s Number Eleven family), 37 races. ‘ 16— The Oldfield Mare (Bruce Lowe’s Number Fourteen family), 36 races. 17— Helmsley Turk Mare (Bruce Lowe’s Number Twenty-four

family), 36 races. ' 18— The Moonah Barb Mare of Queen; Anne (Bruce Lowe’s Number Twenty-one family), 29 races. 19— Sister to Stripling by Hutton’s Spot (Bruce Lowe’s Number Sixteen family), 28 races. 20— Royal Mare (Bruce Lowe’s Number ; Thirteen family), 25 races. 21— A Royal Barb Mare (Bruce Lowe’s Number Thirty-two family), 20 races. 22 Daughter of Old Woodcock (Bruce Lowe’s Number Eighteen family), : 20 races. 23 A Brimmer Mare (Bruce Lowe s Number Twenty-five family), 19 races 24 Daughter of -Merlin (Bruce Lowe s ; Number Twenty-six family), 14 races. ‘ 25 Black-Legged Royal Mare _ (Bruce Lowe’s Number Seven family), 14 26 Belgrade Turk Mare (Bruce Lowe’s Number Twenty-two family). 13 27 Rbyak Mare (Bruce Lowe’s Number Forty family), 11 races. 28— Sister to Old Merlin (Bruce Lowe’s Number Thirty-seven family), 6 races, 29 A Spanker Mare (Bruce Lowe s Number Twenty-seven family), 6 30— Byerly Turk Mare (Bruce Lowe’s Number Seventeen family), 3 races. 31— Dick Burton’s Mare (Bruce Lowe’s Number Thirty-one family), 3 races. ’ * 7- ‘ ■ 32 Daughter of Curwen’s Bay Barb (Bruce Lowe’s Number Thirty-six family), 2 races. , _ ; 33 Daughter of Place’s White Turk (Bruce Lowe’s Number Twentyeight family), 1 race. 34 — A Natural Barb Mare (Bruce Lowe’s Number Twenty-nine family), 1 race. THE MAKE-UP OF A GOOD HORSE. Mr A. B. (“Banjo”) Paterson, writing in the Sydney ‘ Mail,’ offers some interesting observations on the vexed question of make and shape. “ The dictum that they run in all shapes,” he writes, “was never better exemplified than in the case of Peter Ran, and his appearance raises the eternal question : Why is this horse so good? Is it his action, or his heart,, or his pedigree? It certainly is not his appearance, for few would pick him for the champion that he is. “ It is a mournful reflection that we go-down to buy horses with money in our pockets and confidence in dur liearts and not one of ns n as the slightest idea what it is that makes a great racehorse. Perhaps the man who got nearest to the truth was the man who said, ‘ It is something inside them that you can’t see.’ “Further to this subject, as they say in the business letters, there may be something in.' the idea that success in a racehorse depends upon a coordination of parts such as is found in a successful motor-car; or it may be that some horses have a certain special quality of muscle such as we find in some of the lower forms of life. “ A grasshopper, for instance, can jump about forty times his own height without an effort, while a six-foot man is a good jumper if he can clear anything more than his own height. We do at any rato know that the quality of bone and muscle is of much more importance than size, and Peter Pan must be built of very high quality stuff. Some day somebody will invent a muscle detector, and then, to quote an old music-hall inanity, * Wo shan t be long.’ . , , , “ About this time last year an American breeder, a Mr Hirshon,. was out here and had a look over some of the local yearlings. He could not stand the Heroics at all; in fact, ho described them as ‘ hammer-headed little brutes with ewe necks.’ Since then they have won a Melbourne Cup, an Australian Cup, and some assorted classic races; so they don’t know everything even in the land of the rubber dollar. “ This year I was accompanied on an inspection by a sportsman from the Argentine, where their young horses are foaled to Australian time. Naturally it was a good opportunity to find out -what they would think of our .horses in the Argentine. “ The Heroics were not damned with faint praise at this inspection. The colt by Heroic from Cohesion was reckoned class enough to hold his own with horses of a similar age in any part cf the world. And there was a beautiful little filly, a full-sister to Maid of Orleans, which the inspecting authority described as ‘ only big enough to hang on your watch chain, but pure gold.’ This filly is undoubtedly a throw-back to the original Eastern blood from which all our thoroughbreds arc descended, and her bones and sinews are hard as tempered steel. Size is not everything, for this filly’s full-sister, almost exactly the same size, was leased with an option of purchase for 300 gs, and the lessee got 1,500 for her. “ One that filled the eye and might fill the pocket was the colt by Constant Son out of Persuasion. This one would fetch in the Argentine what sounded like a fortune in dollars, and lie could have been used as a model for a horse artist; but to the Argentinian eye there seemed even greater possibilities about the half-brother (by Constant Son) to Amounis. Coarser in type and a little ungainly at this age, he was described as ‘ one that might make a

stallion when he conics into shape,’ and it was admitted that they did not breed anything much better anywhere. Tills colt wnsmiot on view at a second visit. “ The Rampions attracted attention, because the St. Simon blood has died out pretty well everywhere except here, but this horse and Limond aro keeping the old flag flying to some purpose. The high quality of the Sions provoked admiration, though the visitor did not know that this look of class was all inherited from one individual horse — Valais. “ Bridge is a game of aces and kings, and horse breeding is a game of individuals, let the figure and other theorists rave as they will. This is in no sense a review of all the yearlings, but just an attempt to mention those that caught the eye of a visitor. There may have been better horses there, but these arc what tho visitor picked out.” JOTTINGS. Nominations for the Oamaru Trotting Club’s Winter Meeting close on Monday at 9 p.m The acceptances received for the first day of tho ■•Forbury Park Meeting, to be held next Thursday, are good, ami will give punters something to consider. According to ‘ the Wellington ‘ Dominion,’ a South Island owner is.negotiating for the purchase of the Hawke’s Bay jumper Manuiri, Wilton, who ran in the hurdle race at Marton on Saturday, is a brother to the dual Grand National Steeplechase winner Wiltshire, and is reported to be a likelv cross-countrv candidate this winter.

Last Link has made a good recovery from the rick he gave himself in a gallop a couple of mornings prior to the South Canterbury Jockey Club’s Meeting. \ Juno the Third has been galloping well on' the Invercargill tracks since her arrival at Alex. M'Kenzic’s stable, and on Thursday morning put up the fastest five furlongs recorded. In connection with next week’s meeting at Forbury Park, the executive is making the race card a souvenir one each day, and worthy of the occasion. The cards will he on sale next Tuesday. Thirteen steeplechasers have been engaged in tho steeplechase on the opening day of the Southland Meeting, a fact that augurs well for the cross-country events on the Dunedin Jockey Club’s winter programme. Judging by the nominations received for the steeplechases and hurdle races to bo decided at the Auckland Winter Meeting, there is no dearth of jumpers in the North Island. The handicaps for the Great Northern Hurdle and Steeplechase are due on Monday. Harold Logan, who was to meet Auburn Lad in Auckland to-day, is reported to have done exceptionally well during his tour of the North Island, and will be at his best when he meets Walla Walla over a mile at Forbury Park next Saturday. Over a mile and a-quarter in the Southland Cup, The Smuggler has been asked to concede Palermo 221 b, but over six furlongs at the same meeting the difference is only 51b. Palermo is by Solferino, a sire iof stayers, and there is no reason to doubt Palermo’s stamina to be improving with age. It is reported from Invercargill that the training tracks,at that centre were made very heavy with the recent rains, and most of the horses working there are short of fast work. Tho same conditions exist at both Riccarton and Wingatui. Both Jacobin and Bay Biddy scored their first successes at the recent Riverton Meeting. The former carried 7.0 and ran six furlongs in limn 14 2-ssec. Bay Biddy carried 8.7_ over tho same distance and won in Imin 15 3-ssec. In the Roslyn Handicap, six furlongs, to be run on the opening day of the Southland Racing Club’s Meeting, Jacobin has been awarded 8.0 and Bay Biddy 7.3.

There are one or two surprises in the probable fields for the first day’s racing at Invercargill next month. The Smuggler, All Humbug, and Ventrac, who have shown their best form over middle distances, are engaged in the open sprint race, and Palermo, who has always been confined to sprint racing, is now engaged in the mile and a-quar-ter race.

The conditions of the Trial Handicap, to be decided on the opening day of the Southland Racing Club’s Meeting, next month, make only those horses that have not won a race at a totalisator meeting eligible. It is not a good advertisement at this season of the year to find twenty horses still eligible, particularly when practically all of them have been started before.

Acervate, who was killed while steeplechasing at Marton last Saturday, was an aged black mare by Acre from Ruse de Guerre, and was the property of Mr G. H. James, _ a Palmerston North hunting entlmsiasst. She won a couple of jumping events at the last Auckland Winter Meeting, and had looked so well lately that she was expected to win races during the coming winter. She had the Marton Steeplechase as good as won when sic met with the accident which resulted in her death. Don Erma, a hunter who carries the colours made famous by old Nukumai, made a promising showing in the hurdle race at Marton. He is an aged gelding by Danilof from Erma, and his racing experience is not extensive. He won the Maiden Hunters’ Steeplechase at Egmont-Wanganui last August, and ran third in the hurdle race at Stratford at New Year. Considering that ho took on an experienced winter in Invictns for a greater part of th« running, Don Erma did well to finish sixth at Marton, and in his own sphere should he a useful horse during the jumping campaign.

R. Dunn has resigned his position as private, trainer to Mr C. P. Cameron. During the term Dunn was in chaige of the Santa Rosa Farm team ho won numerous races. Sir Guy was the principal winner, but Avermis, Harold Denver, and Guy Junior also earned distinction. R. Dunn, as trainer, and C. King, as reinsman, was a happy combination and a very successful one. Dunn has had a big experience with young horses, and is a capable trainer of both pacers and trotters. He has not made up his mind regarding the future, and may seek a similar position to that which he held at Santa Rosa.

Rather an interesting story is reljited by the ‘ Southland Times ’ concerning the birth of Blue Mountain Queen. It is given out that the night that the Bellman mare was responsible for ihcr mating with Blue Mountain Kingithe foal was sought by Mr Dawson and his wife, and it was found that the baby had got into a ditch. Great difficulty was experienced with the foal, and'Mr Dawson considered that he had better kill it, for its chance of living vas meagre. His wife persuaded him not to take the extreme step, and the foal was saved, to eventually furnish into one of the most cfipablo pacers in the home province. , Jocelyn, who won the Metropolitan at Randwick in the spring of 1928 for Mr John Stuart Brunton, who is one of the Australian patrons of the Trenthain yearling sales, is on a visit to New Zealand. She is to bo milted with oithir Night Paid nr Iliad at iho Kldorslic Stud. Now nine years old, .Joceivn sti]l

belongs to Mr Brunton. She is by the St. Frusquin horse llossendalo from Maltiue by Maltster (son of Bill of Portland) from Loch Lava by Lochiel from Lava by Chester. Maltine, who was also raced by Mr Brunton, was one of the best mares of her time. She also won the Metropolitan at Randwick, and her other successes included the V.R.C. Maribyrnong Plate, Bourke and Farewell Handicaps, A.J.C. Gimcraek and Centenary Stakes, and Craven Plate, and the Rawson Stakes at Rosehill.

The pacing gelding Auburn Lad has done exceptionally well since he arrived from Australia (says the Christchurch ‘Star’). It can be said ‘hat he is definitely a better horse to-day than when ho won the principal two-mile race on the second day of the New Zealand Metropolitan Trotting Club’s Easter Meeting. His record of 2min 2 2-ssec, accomplished at Addington recently, is evidence of his outstanding ability. Being such a fine stayer, bo .should experience little difficulty in picking up another two-mile race before he returns to the Commonwealth. He is on a 4min 26scc mark. Should the limit of the next New Zealand Trotting Cup bo 4min 26sec, Auburn Lad would be a difficult horse to beat off his present handicap. His mission at Epsom on Saturday may he the special match contest to be decided over one mile and a-quartcr. If he is successful over a sprint journey he would si,ill be eligible for the limit of a I min 2Gsee class two miles.