STEELYARDS USED

Hokitika Guardian, 2 November 1932, Page 8

STEELYARDS USED

FOR “WEIGHING OUT JOCKEYS.

NOVEL SCENE ON COURSE

SYDNEY, October 15

The crowd at Kembla Grange rarecouse last week was puzzled by a :e J markable scene outside the > official stand.

1 A jockey in livery held tightly with one hard to a’bare suspended from -a bes m, and with the other hand clung to a saddle, his feet in repe-made loops While officials and owners looked on As. soon as he had completed this strenuous •' balancing feat another jockey, • who' had boon standing by in was assisted into-the loops. Such' a procedure was unprecedented at metropolitan and ’> .provincial race meetings, and the crowd looked on in amazement. The loss of a set of scale weights was the cause of all the exe teirient.

i When the riders engaged in the first division c" the Maiden Welter Han licap prepared to weigh-out the scales were in their customary place, but the weights could not be found. Ml' "Woodbury, father, of tbe secret-',ry of the Grange Club,' motored to Da-jot to secure another set, but- was un-due to obtain one. However; lie got a set of butcher’s steelyards, took them to the Kembla Grange course, affix'd them to the) official stand, and with them, supplemented by an arrangement of ropes and ■ straps, the 'tv-ib officials 'weighed out the jockeys for the opening event. It was a slow procedure, however, ard one iockey, N. MeLaehlan. motored -to Wollongong with the object ol obtaining a set of scales. This time the, mission was successful, and Melrichlnn was returning in triumph to the course when the officials discovered that the weights wete safely fin the dlayer and had not been removed from it.