SPORTING NEWS.

Hastings Standard, Issue 208, 30 December 1896, Page 2

SPORTING NEWS.

[By Gipsy Grand.j I The dividend 011 Douglas 111 the Farewell at Palmerston was X"2 Is. The Manawatu Club will clear £i~>so over the recent meeting. Trentalto, Daredevil, Eip Van Winkle, Orion's Belt, and Bijou returned from Palmerston by the express last evening. As one who believes in the motto of giving credit where credit is due, J cannot refrain from mentioning the splendid condition in which T. Jones, the local trainer, brings his horses to the post. That he has established a creditable reputation as a trainer will hardly be denied when the improvement of Aphony, Flaneur, and Marchioness is taken into account and compared with their condition of a few months' back. Jones is entitled to credit. To run into second place is a rather unfortunate position to occupy at the finish of a race, and the unfortunate jockey is chewed to pieces by a merciless public in nine out of every ten cases. The case of the Palmerston Cup is one. where the rider of Douglas, young Glass, came in for no small share of unwarrentable discredit simply because his horse ran into second place. Every other rider in the race came out unscathed in the opinion of the public. It is only fair to the lad to state that he rode a good race, and is highly credited by the Manawatii Standard for riding a good race in his first attempt in public. The Auckland B.C. are to be commended for the prompt and necessary reform embodied in the following resolution which was passed yesterday " That in the event of two or more horses belonging to the same owner running in any one race, the horses shall be bracketed together on the totalisator machine, the dividend to be paid as for one horse in the case ot _ either winning." Why this resolution was given effect to at the present time can be attributed to one reason—that of the hostile demonstration over the result of Foal Stakes iu which the hitherto unbeaten Multiform was defeated by his companion Gold Medallist. Both horses are owned by (j. (.}. Stead, and the race was won by the horse paying the bigger dividend. The public demonstration that followed appears to have been aggrivaled by the rememberance of two years ago, in which the same race was won by the same owner, with two horses in the race, such horses running first and second, the favorite (Mamilieher) second and the outsider (Blue Fire) winning, the hostile expression which followed, in fact the whole affair was repeated on Saturday lasf. It is to be hoped that all the clubs in the colony will adopt the resolution

possed at Auckland in the interests of tlie public.