Sporting Notes.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 205, 6 October 1888, Page 3

Sporting Notes.

[By Willow.] Of all the officers in connection with a racing club, the unfortunate handicapper is the one most selected as a target at which to launch sarcasms and occasionally something worse. It is at best an unthankful billet, especially when innumerable kicks and no ha’pence sum up the total of the salary attached to the position. Mr Bennett in alloting the weights for the Spring meeting of the P.B. Turf Club had an awkward task, but one much simplified by having the running and weighting of the Napier contingent before him, the great complaint made, if complaint it be, is that in order to give our local h?rses a show at all the handicaps should have started higher. Well, perhaps in the Hurdle Race this might hive been done, because in the first place there is nothing in it but Kangaroo, aud although some of tbe lower division are let in as lightly as Bst 71b it is a moral certainty they will have to carry overweight. There are very few jockeys fit to put on a horse over sticks, in New Zealand, who can ride at that weight, so that the letting in of certain horses with Bst 71b is merely a hollow delusion. Kangaroo can, in the company he will have to meet, carry a stone additional and not be discomforted and had this been allotted him a better race might have been expected. Clyde, should be run as he has been known to do, is the next most dangerous horse ih the race, but I notice that he -has commenced to run “cunning,” Barring that the handicap was started too low I do not see any reason for grumbling unless, perhaps, at one or two of those things which “no fellah can understand.” For instance the last time Bit of Blue met Dividend (formerly Rangatira) the former carried lOst 41b and the latter 9st 91b. It will be remembered that in the race neither horse finished—both coming down, Bit of Blue at the last hurdle, whilst Rangatira came to grief long before. By the present handicapping there is only a difference of four pounds between them, and I admit that

“I can’t make it out, can you?” is the only way to treat the difficulty. The handicapping for the Spring and Flying Handicaps gives evidence of careful consideration, and shows that Mr Bennett did not adhere blindly to the weights allotted by Mr Danvers for the Napier Park Company’s meeting. Taking away the top carriers, Silence and Dudu, the remainder are all well in, and there can be no call for cavilling. Thia being so the acceptances should be large. Just one word ea passant. Why should Silence carry Ost 2ib in the big event and only Oat in the tbiee-qqarter mile flutter? Without minutely going over the various horses, I am of opinion at present, that bar Silence (about whose coming there appears to be a doubt), Dudu, Balista, and Meta appear to have the biggest say in the Spring Handicap, and the same may be said of the Flying. Of our local horses Audacity and Nora in the former and the son of Band? wick and Fitzjames in the latter are the best, I am afraid however, that we are too much given to overrate Mr Hepburn’s little horse, who, although he will come to the post as fit as bands can make him, must have improved a lot to figure prominently in the company he will find himself in. Were Fitzjames as well as I have seen him I should unhesitatingly spot him straight away as the winner of the three-quarters of a mile at the weight he has to carry. One thing is certain and that is the Turf Club will on the occasion of the spring meeting offer to lovers of sport an excellent day’s racing, and even should the foreigners succeed in carrying o$ ths biggest plums we shall at all avehts have the pleasure ol watchihg & tussle to? thetu.