SPORTING NOTES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10105, 2 August 1893, Page 6

SPORTING NOTES.

ENGLISH AND FOREIGN

The only instance of a grey colt having won the English Derby waa in 1831, when Gustavua, by Election—Lady Grey, waa successful.

During the discussion in the House of Commons as to adjourning over Derby Day, Mr Brookfield, in opposing the motion, complained of the violation of the precincts of the House by a member of Her Majesty’s Government having been seen doing buunefs with a book-maker in the inner lobby. Sir Charles Bussell, the Minister indicated, was in Paris at the time, but immediately he read the statement, he wired to Mr Brookfieldl require your immediate and complete retraction of your statement about mo. It is absolutely without foundation. — Charles Ruseell, Hotel Chatham, Paris.”

The Ascot Meeting opened on June 13 under most favourable auspices. The chief event of the day, the Ascot Stakes, was won by Sir E. J. Jardine’s Enniskillen, by Priam, out of Rosary, by Knight of the Garter. Madame d’Albany, by Buchanan, out of Lady Charlie, was second, and Lauriscopo, by Hagioscope, out of Harriet Laws, third. Next day the Royal Hunt Club Cup was won by Baron do Rothschild’s Amandier, by Lavereb, out of Avaline. Pitcher, by Swillingtoa, out of Samaria, by Syrian, finished second, and Mr Daniel Cooper’s Juvenal, by Springfield, out of Satire, was third. Count Kiusky, who rode bis own mare Zoedone, to victory in the Liverpool Grand National Steeplechase of 1883 was lately accused of having, at the Vienna races, cruelly ill-used hia trainer by riding his horse backwards and forwards over him. The Count was said to have adopted this means of punishing hia servant in consequence of a grievance in connection with the running of one of his horses. No sooner had the sensational item been published than it waa contradicted by Count Kinsky, who telegraphed that “the incident has been maliciously misconßtrued. The affair,” he adds, “ was a pure accident, due solely to tho bolting and fractious behaviour of a frightened horse, The Count adds that tho trainer corroborates hia version of the incident.”

A writer in an exchange states that there is not now any such thing as weighing in Brazil, tha racing authorities in that distant country having tiken measures to stamp out at, least that one evil associated with tho turf. All the regular bookmakers, so the correspondent referred to states, are locked up in a huge stone building with grated windows, through which they bet with the public, and are not free to leave the racecourse until their clients have departed. There waa a time when bookmakers in Brazil preferred to pay winning backers ,c by the mile” instead of in coin, hence tbe introduction of the new system. The story my be true or may not, and is given for what it is worth, Tho special commissioner of the London Sportsman, remarks apropos of the time test: —The Two Thousand Guineas was run in excellent time, and for that reason I relied on it at the last as the true indicator of Eavenabury’s form. We now know with what result. Let it be plainly understood that I am not advocating the time teat as a means by which horses in this country can be triod to the nicety of a second or a fraction cf it, but as a tell-tale of pace within reasonable limits it ia invaluable, and this I claim that the running of Ravensbury has proved. Were it the practice to time triala just to see whether the horses really came along or not, an immense number of mistakes would ba avoided.

A correspondent has supplied a contemporary with a record of the two following extraordinary leaps:—When Mehemet Aii inveigled his Mamelukes into the citadel of Cairo, with the intention of shooting them down, one (Amyn Bey) charged the wall. His horse jumped over and fell down the precipice on the other aide, which was 50ft high. The horse, lighting on a root, was killed instantly. The rider escaped with a broken ankle. This sounds a big thing, but Sir Francis Head telle, in "The Horse and His Eider,” a more miraculous story still. A general officer in Dominica, in the Weet Indies, rode, by accident, over a precipice in the dark, which has a perpendicular height of 237 ft. Every bone in his horse’s body was broken, but he escaped alive. The rider, who at once reported home to his mother the nature of the deliverance he had had, was prepared to receive incredulity. As he himself admitted—“l did not expect to he believed, though there were several living witnesses.” Describing the race for the Darby “ Easier, ” of the Illustrated, Sporting and Dramatic News, wrote:—“For just half a second in the course of the race, after the field had rounded Tattenham Corner, it looked as if the odds might be upset. Raeburn came round the tuna rather wide; Loates promptly snapped the inside berth, and seemed to be coming on to win, wnen Isinglass swerved, and Eaeburn, whom he had deprived of the lead, headed bitn again, and the natural supposition was that the favourite would not stay home. Loates got out bis whip, but before he raised it Mr M’Calmont’s colt shot forward —I guessed why, and hia jockey subsequently confirmed the idea. Ho had touched Isinglass with the spur, and he, entirely unused to such persuasion, had immediately responded. What did it mean, this swerve ? Lcates furnished the details of the race during that particularly interesting five minutes when the jockeys have weighed in, and when they tell us more than we have seen, or rather explain the reason of incidents we have noted and not quite understood (those few jockeys, I mean, who keep their heads, really know what has been going on, and can furnish a lucid explanation.) Isinglass, to use his jockey’s own words, ‘ran as green as a \,wo-year-old. At the turn Raeburn went wide, and I popped no inside, but ray horse wouldn’t face the people. They cheered . and shouted, and it upset him; he swerved aad wanted to run away from them. I tried to ride him with my hands, bub Eaeburn got in front of me, arid I had to hit bins. I gave him one touch with the epur, too, then he shot ahead and went on aqd won.’ That is the true story of the Derby, and Watts, who was.of course ia the best position to see

just what was going on, perfectly understood the state of affairs, and waa never buoyed up by any deceptive hopes of victory. Watts rode his hardest, threw away no shadow of a chance, but perceived that Raeburn could never beat Isinglass, and moreover ia fully convinced that on a straight course like Newmarket —at Newmarket, that is, for there are no such courses elsewhere—lsinglass will beat tbe Duke of Portland’s good little horse much more easily still.”