SPORTING.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 606, 12 May 1891, Page 3

SPORTING.

A FINE DESCRIPTION OF THE BIG BATTLES. The best description that we have read of the historic battles between Carbine and Marvel is given by a writer in the Australasian. As the events rank so highly in Australian turf annals the description is well worthy of reproduction Carbine was dragged out to the post with a canvas cover over him, for it was raining heavily. He would rather have stayed in his shed, and made no sort of secret of bis desire. But Marvel the beautiful was bounding about the course like an indiarubbor ball. The race has been described, but the scene at the finish pretty well defies description. That the splendid black should have beaten even Cartine was not a marvel, but that he should have beaten him with such ridicnlouser.se was a matterhhat could not be explained on form. For after trying to get up on the inside (as in the Doncaster Handicap, when Colley blocked him by a consummate but thoroughly legitimate bit of jockeyship), he pulled deliberately out and went past the great horse as though he was standing still. It seemed to daze Ramage as well as everybody else, for, offer riding hard for a-few strides, and as a result of seeing only Marvel's long black tail going further away ' from him, be gave it up in despair, and the blank look on his face nt the finish was a study. Walter Htckenbothara was white almost with mortification and dismay, and the owner was equally astounded. They , could hardly realise that ‘ Obi Jack ’ had gone down before the Sydney horse almost without a struggle; for those who had watched . Carbine closely, and had not altogether lost their heads iu the excitement of the moment, must have seen that he finished in an altogether spiritless fashion Either the horse had suddenly gone off —and that was not a probable theory—or there were other reasons to seek. Then came fault-finding and unlimited advice. Ramage had made a mistake in making the running. He should have waited for Marvel and beat him home. The reason might have been worth considering had Carbine been a head in a desperate race, but in face of what actually occurred it was ridiculous. The first to blurt out the truth was a big Sydney trainer, who, rushing over to Mr Wallace, said, ‘ You must hove been mad to send him out barefooted on such a day like this.' ‘ I wish you bad told me that sooner,’ said the owner. ‘I told Monaghan,’ was the quiet reply, ‘ when he was girthing up Marvel, and didn’t he chuckle,’ Then, of course, the blame was transferred from Carbine’s rider to Carbine’s trainer. But it was a point on which opinions differed very much. Mr Sam Cook, who is no novice in the manage, meet of a racehorse, declared firmly that Walter was right to have run him barefoot, and should do it again in the two mile race that was to follow. But Mr Cook gallops his horses generally over a sand track, which holds better in wet weather than in dry, and experience gained even at Flemington wae little use at Randwick. I had walked over the course on the day before tho race, and never saw the grass so long before on any running track. The condition of the ground beneath had little to do with it, for the grass was too thick for the hoof to go through. The rain, which bad made Syd. ney as green as an emerald, had brought a luxuriant crop of soft young crass up through the couch nt Randwick, and it was not at all bolding. If yon have ever watched Carbine’s action closely you will have noticed that he draws himself with th e forelegs as well a s propelling with the hind ones. He is a horse with a tremendous long stride, and he has a soft hoof with a prominent frog Under all the circumstances the contention that a mistake had been made in running Carbine without either plates or tips seemed a feasible one, Tho followers cf Marvel said no ; plates or tips had nothing to do with it. Carbine had been beaten by the best mile horse in Australia. Perhaps so, but that was not the point at issue. It was not the defeat of Carbine that required explanation, but his riduculous easy defeat. Even (he Sydney men in their enthusiasm wouldn't contend that Marvel, at practically even weights, should have run over Carbine in a mile race, just as if he was a selling plater 1 inslead of the proved best horse that has ever raced in Australia. Had they been foolish enough to have claimed that the race was run with both horses on their merits, no one would have accepted. The Marvel party were game, and whatever couise prudence qr policy may have dictated, or whatever may have been said against them b cause in the past they chose to consider their horse their own so far as scratching or starting was concerned, they came to the scratch this tiipq like true sportsmen. Marvel was out long before the race, and while people were yet in the paddock, so it is hard to say what would have been his reception; but Carbine’s was enthusiastic in the extreme. The. race was run, it seemed, to suit Marvel, who was eager from the first to get galloping, and he plunged and fought for his liberty in a way that perhaps took something out of him before it came to real racing. With a mile covered at a pace not calculated to burst up a horse, the Marvel people were exultant. It was their race without a shadow of doubt. One big bookmaker raised his voice in a rash offer to lay Carbine, and a Victorian turf commissioner, who more often lays than backs, snapped at th? wager with an eagerness that showed plainly what his convictions were. There were no more rash offers. In the straight they waited for the Matvei rush, which was to paralyse Carbine, as in the first event, but there was no rush. People were slow to believe it, but when Harris raised his whip and it fell once, twice, thrice, and yet no rush, the fact was patent, The black horse had been beaten without a struggle, and he rolled labouring home half a dozen lengths behind the champion. Hats were in the air by hundreds, and such a yell was raised as Carbine entered the paddock that for once he seemed to lose his head, and rushed open-mouthed at Jimmy Ashworth’s old gray, as though he were to blame for the disturbance. The report goes on to describe the great excitement, and notes the amazement at the one bit of bad temper shown by Carbine. The cheering continued 'for a quarter of an hour, and the cheering mass surged around the horse, many getting mixed up with his heels and knocked under him. But he had become as placid as a tame sheep, Acceptances for the Queen’s Birthday meeting are to be in at the Masonic Hotel on Wednesday night, At a presentation ceremony in the Wairarapa Mr Hogg made use of the phrase a "wounded dove.” "A wounded dog” was the gay compositor’s version in one of the newspapers, During the hearing of a charge of assault at the Dunedin City Police Court, it was stated that the complainant, a small boy, had been chastised by defendant for an offence which he had never committed. Afterwards ; he had entered into negotiations with defendant’s wife, with the result that he had ’ accepted four shillings in silver and a greyhound pup to “ settle the affair.” After 1 obtaining these, however, on second thoughts ’ he determined to seek redress at the hands of ■ the law, as well as retaining possession of ’ the four shillings and the greyhound pup. , The case was dismissed.

One of the smartest utterances of the Wesley Centenary must be set down to the credit of the Bev. J, 0. Wright, a Plymouth minister. He was tracing the gradual change in Wesley’s opinions and refuting the claims of the High Church party. It reminded him, he said, of the story of the showman who was travelling in the North of England, and who announced John Wesley's skull among the exhibits. A Methodist woman visiting the show expressed a doubt as to its genuineness on the ground that it was so small. " I know it’s small,” said the showman, <* but you see it’s John Wesley's skull when he was a boy,” Accordingly, when they were told that John Wesley believed in Apostolical succession and baptismal regeneration, they should remember that that was John Weeley'a skull When be was a boy.