OUR BEST

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 67, 6 March 1929, Page 2

OUR BEST

SIRE, MATRON, RACEHORSE. (“Antisthenes” in Christchurch “Star.”) Going up to sun myself on the fine stand at Motukarara, I found Dick Mason and his old friend Mr. H. J. Otley talking over their racing experiences of the ’eighties. I thought it a good opportunity to ask Mason his opinion oh three questions: Who was our greatest Sire? Who was our greatest brood mitre? And Who was our greatest racehorse? As to the sire, he said Musket; but presently he added that it could be argued that Carbine was the greater—for he went Home and got a winner of the Derby. Turning back to Musket, he said he was a gouty horse, owing to being too high fed. Afraij of letting his condition, down they gave him oats all the year, whereas his system ought to have been cleansed and refreshed by some grazing every day. The unfortunate consequence was that his stock were gouty, too, much afflicted with ill humours which distressed and often defeated their trainers. Still, thoy were so good that so long as they could be kept on the tracks they won.

As to the good mare, didn’t I think that was a question the answer to which would require a lot of study of the book, and weighing up of claims ? I replied that I merely wanted the impression that his experience had left on his mind—experience and observation of the mares’ foals as they came into his Or other’s hands. On this he at once said Frailty, who- great first foal Trenton was followed by Niagara. Cuirassier, hud Cissy, and whose last foal was Siege Gun. Mr. Otley submitted the claim of Formo, who threw Forme (dam of Cruciform) and Forme's brothers, Uniform and Multifoiqn. Mason, in his quiet way, admitted that much might be said for her—we know he had a great opinion of Multiform—but apparently the deeds of Trenton and Niagara and their brothers and sisters outweighed in his memory even Multiform’s. He also mentioned Mersey, Carbine’s dam, and considered that her other foals, though Carnage was one of them, were not in Carbine’s class.

This brought up naturally the question of the greatest racehorse. The answer ‘was Carbine, and no rivals. It wasn’t only his wins at weight for age, his Sydney Cup, his first Melbourne Cup, and then his astonishing second Melbourne Clinic was bis gameness. At the A.J.C. Autumn Meeting he won the All Aged Stakes, and, when he camo in, was splasher! with blood, having burst a foot. They bound the foot up and the same afternoon they brought him out for the Cumberland Stakes, two miles, which he won. though most horses would have refused to gallop.