SPORTING NOTES.

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 9184, 5 January 1891, Page 4

SPORTING NOTES.

(From the New Zealand Mall t January 2.) Lyford pot £CO for winning the Grand National. Thomas £lO for riding Wolverine iu theN«*w Zealand Cup.

It ia a singular fact that the Auckland Cup has never been won by a Musket, though Craekshot, being by Nordeafeldt, is a very near relation.

A correspondent of the Sportsman sums up the betting aspect of the Melbourne Cup thus :— 4 In th* recent laces in which Carbine won, the most that was laid on the day by the bookmakers was £5 to £l. Many did not get more than £8 and tome as low as £2 to £l, In this race (the Cup), forty-ono horses started. So that forty-one men dealing with the bookmaker and paying £1 each, lose amongst them £35; £6, as I have shown (that la. five to one), goes to the winner, and £35 into the pockets of the bookmaker.’ Good business this, very. For every £4l invested ‘in the recent race which Carbino won* the bookmakers cleared £35 ! 4 Some idea of the extent to which this gambling mania has gone may be under* stood when it is considered that nearly, if not quite, £1,000,000 sterling was the amount trafficked with at Flemingtou on the recent Melbourne Cup Day.* Thus according to Mr Varley, out of each thousand invested by backers on Carbine’s Cup, the baokor of the winner gets about £l5O, and the bookmaker who laid against the winner receives £SSO 1 As, moreover, ‘one million sterling was the amount trafficked in on the recent Melbourne Cup Day,* the ring, after paying out to every backer of Carbine, cleared about £850,000 for themselves. Goodman has returned to New Zealand with Blizzard, and complains that the 'handicappers on the other side were very hard on his horse.

Hollowback, who won the Public Auction Stakes at Ballarat the other day, is a New Zealander, being out of Daddy Longlegs* dam by a son of imported Tim Whiffler. A Melbourne writer thinks that Hollowback will turn out a clinker.

The people who trained Leviathan state that be was ‘got at* the night before the Ballarat Handicap. The horse won the Ballarat Cup, and had just previously been victorious in the Sandhurst Cup and Bendigo Handicap, but iu this race he only lau fourth with Sst 21b up. The night before the Melbourne Cup Mr Henry Varley, the Evangelist, wrote urging the Secretary of the V.R.C. to reform and ‘set hie face as a flint against this great evil for time to come.* The racing went ou and Carbine got there just the same.

Two letters about the Ixion business appeared in the Canterbury Times the other day. The first was from Mr Duncan Rutherford, who writes as follows; —'Sir, —l notice a paragraph in your sporting notes to the effect that a report was circulated at the late D.J.C. meeting that Mr Lunn had advised me to purchase Ixion, and had advised Mr Kildare to sell. lam not aware if Mr Kildare was advised by Lunn to sell or not, but I do know that Lnnn never advised me to buy the horse. If such a report has been circulated it is nothing loss than a vicious attempt by some unprincipled scoundrel to rub a man of his living. At present I must decline to go into details, as I have asked Lunn to apply to the C.J.O, to inquire into the sale of the hoise.’ The other letter is from Mr Ronald M’Master, who says ; *1 notice that according to your interview with Hr Lunn, he states that he endeavoured to persnade me not to sell Ixion at the termination of the Christchurch Spring Meeting, I can only give this statement a most emphatie denial, as but for the bad performances of the horse throughout that meeting I should not have been induced to have taken so small a sum for him. I will make no comment upon the fact that the horse was purchased by another patrou of Mr Lunn’a stable or upon the extraordinary reversal of form shown on the different days’ racing at the late D.J.C. meeting.’ In regard to Craokshot (writes Rata) an opinion obtains that he is a horse that stops galloping when fairly collared. Get him away well and keep him in front all the way and he will race well,- bat allow something else to make the running and let him be collared by another contestant and he will not try a yard is the argument advanced, but I have seen nothing In him to inculcate that suspicion, and doubtless it is based mainly on tbe characteristics of his dam, Pungawerewere. Her first progeny, too, may tend to inculcate each an opinion, and in St James she produced a horse that did not care much about extending himself when it came to a close finish. Even Billy White, who rode him when be defeated Occident at Dunedin, considered his victory on that occasion a piece of extraordinary luck. But Crackahot has not shown anything of the St James disposition so far. His owner, too, is of opinion that he is a moat genuine horse, and it will be bad luok if he fails to net a good stake at Auckland. Strephon is highly thought of here, and quite enough of him was seen at the Metropolitan meeting to prove that he is a good horse. It is generally supposed in professional racing circles that he'ought to have won the Hew Zealand Cup, and that be would have won it but for running wide at tbe top turn. An interesting history of the Auckland Cup is given by ‘ Mazeppa,' who writes The first time it was run for, nine months or so after our Dunedin Cup was established, it was won by New Zealand’s pet, Templeton, one of Traducer’s greatest sons in all bat size, and close behind him were Toi (subsequently dam of Kiagssk) and that successful mare Tattorina, who, besides being a noted raoer in her day, has given us some good results at tbe stud, Libeller and Matchook being among her progeny. Next year the well performed Kingfisher beat one of the best racers of tbe day in grand old Coy Fawkes; and in 1876 Ariel, on his second attempt in the race, scored the first of his three wins, beating a sterling colt in Danebury. Lara was perhaps as weak a racer as ever won the Cup, but he won in 1877 on his merits, for he was undoubtedly the best of the wretchedly weak lot that he was called on to meet, Ariel’s opponents in IS7S were also a queer crowd, the reverse of select, and it was no feat to win even though be did give away lumps of weight to everything. The fallowing year there was much the same state of affairs, and Ariel, who was himself a healed cripple, had nothing to beat, the only horse of note beside him in tbe race being Hippocampus, who was then past his prime as a racer. In ISSO the company was much better, the leniently-weighted Foul Play having to dispose of Maid of Honour (afterwards known as dam of Precedence and Freedom), Libeller, and Ring Quail, besides the veteran Ariel, who was then running in his fifth Auckland Cup. It was in this race that poor Nolan was killed. King Quail also defeated a very fair lot, including FitzHercules, old Rewi, and Hilda (the Wellington Cap winner). Welcome Jaok had a soft thing on in 1882, and Salvage won the following year with such ease as to give rise to the suspicion that at least one of those behind Idm was not trying. The Poet upset a great pot in Administrator in 1884, in which race, be it observed, old Normanby, now hacking about in tbe Tapanni district, finished second. In 1885 Nelson made the colonial record for two miles and aqnarter ; in ISBG he won again from a good field ; next season he won for the third time with 9st 121 b up ; then came Lochiel's triampU over Hilda and British Lion; and Leopold’s success brings us to date. Segenboe, the well-known Australian race, horse, died in Sydney the other day.