CONVINCING FORM OF LORD MANNA IN GOLD CUP RACE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22915, 6 April 1949, Page 10

CONVINCING FORM OF LORD MANNA IN GOLD CUP RACE

(Herald Special Service.)

Though the five year-old Lord Manna was the favourite, it is possible that few expected him to deal in such convincing manner with the high-class weight-for-age contestants in the Awapuni Gold Cup race on Saturday. Lord Manna was untroubled to win by three lengths. The performance stamps him perhaps as the best horse now racing in New Zealand. No other could have ' beaten Voltaic by three lengths with another gap nearly as wide to the proved w.f.a. performer, King's Ransom Fourth was Royal Tan, a New Zealand Derby and a Wellington Cup winner. The Palmerston North representative Voltaic, proved a brilliant galloper up lo at least a mile, and who twelve months ago won the Gold Cup, also drew good support. Ridden by G. R. Tattersall the Revelation chestnut gelding did his best, but on the day over the 10 furlongs was no match at the finish for the winner. King's Ransom The Poverty Bay representative. King’s Ransom, is perhaps not as good as he was last year. He had a set back in the late spring or early summer and was then started in the two-mile Auck- j land Cup before being race conditioned j sufficiently. Granted that this season j he has won a weight-for-age race and i the Wanganui Cup, the fact remains I that his efforts were hardly in keeping ! with his best. j

The first Awapuni Gold Cup was contested in the autunm after the commencement of the First World War and was won by the East Coast sportsman, Mr. A. B Williams, with his MultifidAmusement gelding. Chortle, ridden by the late Ben Deeley. This racing district in the next four years also accounted for this weight-for-age race, Desert Gold winning in three successive years. Then came the triumph of the Martian gelding, Sasanof, who beat Desert Gold into second place, but the All Black mare was then on the wane. In 1926 and 1928 Mr A. B. Williams won the Awapuni Gold Cup with two Martian geldings, Rapine and Star Stranger respectively Many high-class horses have won this event, but there is a general opinion that there was never a better galloper in New Zealand than the 1941 winner, Mr. Ned Fitzgerald’s Kindergarten.