A DYSPEPTIC.

Evening Star, Issue 21718, 12 May 1934, Page 12

A DYSPEPTIC.

With an assurance ill-befitting an organ in a racing centre which has been steadily falling from its once high estate, the sporting writer of a Christchurch evening daily has arrogated to himself the framing of a draft racing calendar for the South Island. He says there is too much racing. Undoubtedly there is—in Christchurch. No one who, whether compulsorily or voluntarily, has done the daily pilgrimage to either Riccar-' tob or Addington for six or seven days on end would contest the point at the end of the ordeal. But why should a disillusioned irresponsible, having heard tho word quota used in discussions more germane to cows than horses, endeavour to apply the principle to the sport of kings and jat the same time seek to widen the breach between town and country F For it would be entirely at the expense of the country clubs and country folk that this obscure practitioner would prescribe. He does not stick to his own territory, but invades Otago. Kurow, for example, he finds “ ungetatable.” It may have proved so to him and his employers, for the simple reason that the average Public Works employee prefers ‘ Truth ’ or ‘ Smith’s Weekly ’ to lighten his darkness. Most visiting people experience little difficulty as a rule in either entering Kurow or leaving it. But the most outrageous suggestion of all is that Waikouaiti ' should be closed down. To Otago people this is as great a heresy as would bo the suppression of the Melbourne Cup Meeting in the eyes of any Victorian. Christmas comes but once a year, and in these parts tho intervening week merely spaces that festival from an equally important one, which simply cannot be properly observed anywhere else but at Waikouaiti. It is to be hoped that this unwarranted onslaught has been kept from the knowledge of the venerable president of the club, who has been identified with the district, we understand, since the days when Ned Devine’s coach and six drew up at the “ (a-olden Fleece.” A lifelong acquaintance with horses is a desirable, though not an imperatively necessary, qualification for a president of a racing club. The same may be said regarding a racing scribe, and in addition one might add that a capacity to mind his own business would be an extra recommendation in that sphere of journalism. When there is a tendency to confound oneself with the Racing Conference it can only be diagnosed as a form of megalomania. Horses are bred in the country and will'continue to be raced in the country as long as racing endures. And townspeople will continue to flock to country meetings so long as they find themselves in such pleasant environment and encounter such true hospitality as quite a few country clubs offer.