STRAIGHT RUNNING.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1263, 14 May 1896, Page 24

STRAIGHT RUNNING.

BY THE CIIIEL

Straight racing is not always obtainable on any course, but we must say that in New Zealand it is as much at a premium as in any English colony. Of course a line cannot very well be drawn between where straight racing ends and fraud begins. It has been an unwritten rule on the turf that when a horse lias no earthly chance of winning and his jockey sees that, it is quite legitimate for that jockey to pull his mount out of the race and bring him in as near last as possible. That rule may bo a good one from llio owner's point of view, but it is a very different thing for a handicapper to judge of the weight to a horse, or to come any way near judging the quality of a horse, especially if that horse is a stranger when pulling of this kind occurs. Cases are continually cropping up in this way. A hot favourite is pulled because lie cannot win, and the public are puzzled and angry in consequence. That this should be allowed is but another instance of tho laxity of racing morals. "Why should any owner bo allowed to pull his horse in order to gull the handicappers? Is not that a species of fraud ? Our best and most honoured members of the turf are beginning to see this, and are giving tho public and the handicappers straight runs for their money. It is to be hoped that the practice will be stamped out by our jockey clubs, and a code of rules instituted that will enable all parties to obtain moro satisfactory results. " Pulling "is only one instance, although by no means tho least notable or the only instance, of fraud connected with our racing, and it is only by constantly hammering away that wo can hope to abolish these evils.