SPORTING NOTES.

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 8846, 25 November 1889, Page 7

SPORTING NOTES.

(By Martini.) (From the New Zealand Mail, November 21.) The scratching of Jet d’Eau for the Exhibition Cap on Saturday caused a local bookmaker some vexation. Daring the day he had had numerous invitations to lay Jet d’Ean, but he wasn’t on. When the scratching was announced he bit his tongue. Melbourne writers think that a split heel may have had something to do with Carbine’s defeat in the Melbourne Stakes. ‘ Forester’s day out,’ would be an excellent title for a description of the Racing Club’s second day’s racing on Monday. Hitherto Forester has been looked upon as a horse of very bad temper, but we must take that all back now, for on Monday he behaved like an angel, and the style in which he won h a races was something to sea. When he won the Welter with lOat 71b up, it was considered a good performance; but eleven stone in the Final Handicap couldn’t stop him, and be won, going like a lion. If it be true, as it is rumoured, that the horse is to be taken to Australia, he will, I am sure, well uphold the credit of his country on the other side. Fit, and in the humour, Forester will give all the Australian sprinters a shaking up. A mare that has inproved wonderfully is Lenore, which is rather remarkable seeing that the Muskets don’t usually improve with age. A big, strapping animal, Lenore will, if she continues to improve, be a very dangerous customer in any company. And the mare that took my fancy at the Hutt is Weka, by Daniel O’Rorke from a Traducer mare. Although rather on the light side, Weka is a magnificently built animal, very cleanly made, and well set up. Her form, however, was anything but first-class. She ran a great race for a mile in the Spring Handicap, but did nothing else ; and in the Final Handicap she simply wasn’t in it with Forester.

The Referee haa the fo'lowing paragraph -with reference to Messre Nathan and Yuille :—This firm of bookmakers have passed through a rather severe ordeal during the past week, for they have been struck for everything; they escaped nothing. They laid the winners of the doubles of V.K.C. Derby and Melbourne Cup, Melbourne and N.Z. Cups, and N.Z. Derby and Cup, besides, to the fullest extent of their book, the winner of the Melbourne and N.Z. Cups straight out. As Mr Nathan put it : ‘He and his partner have worked all the winter for nothing.’ They have been busy paying out since the Metropolitan Meeting, and they state that their Christchurch clients have settled to a man. They only wish the settling in the North will be as satisfactory.

The greatest exception I (Rata) take to Tirailleur is his front action when galloping ; he seems to take up bis off fore leg very clumsily, but Mr Redwood assures me that Lurliue—not Loohiel, one of the finestactioned horses in the world—was very similar. Tirailleur is certainly a bit slabsided and angular to look at, but immaterial of that ho is a racer with plenty of size, bone, substance, and prominent muscular development where muscular development is really wanted.