RACING

Evening Star, Issue 24917, 15 July 1943, Page 7

RACING

[By St. Clair.] Handicaps for the South Canterbury Hunt meeting are due on Saturday, and acceptances close next Tuesday at 9 p.m. The next time Spanish Lad races he will carry the colours of the Washdyke trainer, Frank Trilford. Noko won £l,lOO in slakes in his North Island tour, carrying his total to £1,560 this season.

The bloodstock sale at Trentham last Friday resulted in 42 lots being sold for an aggregate of £5,798 13s. The stakes given by the New Zealand Metropolitan Trotting Club this season averaged £2OO per race more than the stakes given by any other trotting club in the Dominion. Included in the team F. W. Ellis has in preparation for the National meeting at Riccartou is Nigger Lad, a half-brother by Siegfried to those good performers, Nigger Boy and Spanish Lad. Red Glare and Mataimat are the only Grand National Steeplechase candidates engaged at Awapuni next .Saturday, and Noble Fox, Theolateral, a'nd War Credit the only Winter Cup entries.

Sportsmen in England evidently have cory fidence in the future of racing. A filly by the, 1939 Derby winner, Blue Peter, was purchased at the Newmarket yearling sales for 5,800 gs last week. The Manawatu Racing Club's remit providing for the drawing for barrier positions as soon as acceptances close was turned down by the Racing Conference by a large majority. The £322,757 invested .on the totalisators at the Wellington winter meeting constituted a' new record for Trentham, beating this year's Cup meeting total by £3,896. Last Saturday's; turnover, £172,781, exceeded tha previous one-day , total by £2,604. ■ • During the interval between the two days' racing at Trentham L, J. Ellis made a' trip to Auckland to see his brother, A.E., who is an inmate of the Mater Hospital. He reported that the patient is making good progress, and expects to be able to get back to his home in Christchurch before long.. ' - .. , Though the- public sent him out one ot the favourites for- the Winter Hurdles, Renascor never flattered their chances at any stage of the race. His performance strengthened the opinion that he had not fully recovered from the hard races he had at Ellerslie a month previously. Peter Gregor, who started second favourite in the Stewards' Handicap on the first dav of the Wellington meeting and stopped baiily over the last furlong, was neglected in the wagering on the Members' Handicap last Saturday, and returned, a win dividend of nearly a. third of a/century. . Talenta's third in the Winter Hurdles was her best performance since she commenced hurdle racing, and showed that she is « true staver.. The longer journey and better going at Riccarton next month will be •in her favour. But a mare has -not* yet won this race in 53 contests. _. • The most disappointing of thelNortii Island jumpers this season has been Ihe Cardinal, but he may not have had govugto suit him. He is engaged in the -Grand National Steeplechase next month, when ho is almost certain to strike a firm track, and will then have a chance of proving himself as good as his .admirers claim he is. Noko gave a much better performance at Trentham last Saturday than at Hastings a fortnight earlier, and a northern exchange says his final run to catch Biscuit, to whom he was conceding 241 b, was" a very fine exhibition of gameness and stamina. On his Trentham performance the extra half-mile of the Grand National should not. trouble him. The president of the Racing Conference, in his annual address, strongly advocated clubs increasing the distances of the races on their programmes, and struck a most opportune time to do so. With the present restriction on racing, most clubs are receiving so many nominations for shortdistance races that- they are either forced to run these events in divisions or else allow such unwieldy-sized fields to contest them that about half of the horses have no chance of showing their true form. If the distances were increased, many of the fields would be reduced to normal numbers, and trainers would have to work their charges so as to improve their stamina. During the past decade the committee of the Dunedin Jockey Club has done a great deal in this direction, and the inclusion of mile-and-a-quarter hack races has proved popular with owners, and the example has been successfully followed by several other clubs, D.uring the past half-century there has been a tendency to shorten the distances, no doubt with a view to obtaining better .fields, but if the stamina of' our horses is to be improved they should be asked to race over longer distances. At the Dunedin Cup Meeting 50 years ago the average length of the races on the programme (two-year-old races included) was just over nine and a-half furlongs,, as compared with eight and three-quarters furlongs at the same fixture this season. But the chief offenders in this matter have been the country clubs. Taking Gore for an example, and excluding trotting races, the average length of the races on its programme of 50 years ago was just over nine, and a-half furlongs, as compared with just over seven and a-quarter furlongs this year. '