NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8186, 30 July 1912, Page 9

NOTES AND COMMENTS

(By "The Judge.*') Carbine’s Ron, Spearmint, should bare a doent record this season, notwithstanding that a brace of his most promising thrce-ycar-o’d descendants have been out of action by reason of leg: ■ having come against them. -4-. V. ,^ SOI S last month, his youthful son Chickweed carried Major Loder’fl colonrn to victory in tho Great Surrey Foal Stakes. An English snorting paper says that when hia racc-ncling days aro ended, f rank Wootton will probably succeed hU lather as trainer at Treadwell House, kppom. *■* Booms to bo generally understood that at the closo of tho current racing season in England R. Wootton will pay a visit to Australia, and his son Frank will take charge of hia horses until ho returns.

i W*. Evans, who won the Melbourne Cup on Apologue, in telling tho story of Apologue's Cup recently, eaid his strength was exhausted. Ho remembers dismounting and hearing Earnshaw. the trainer of Apologue, asking him what happened at the turn out of tho straight. Two guns then Boomed to go off in hia head, ami he collapsed. His inert form was placed on the scales, weight declared, and he was carried in an unconscious condition to tho members’ room, where the late Sir Thomas Fitzgerald and other doctors brought him round. ‘’Strychnine wua injected in large Quantities, and after tho lapse of about an hour Evans was able to walk about again. lie received £506 for his winning mount on Apologue. In tho course of an article on jockeys, “Milrov,” of the Sydney ‘‘Mail," writes:— “There wore better long-distance riders in tho old days than now, because for one thing, there wero more long-distance races, and, for another, jockeys were trained in an entirely different way. They were not made little gods of and boomed with voice and pen by interested turf gamblers. They had to work or stand out. Fancy Jimmy Ashworth refusing to take a good mount unless laid £660 or £ICOO to nothing beforehandi Fancy any of tho jockeys known to fame in tho palmy days of Tail. Ivory, Noah Beal. Do Mesire, and James Wilson, sear., rushing oif directly after tho racing was over to meet a few choice spirits for a swell dinner, a box at tho theatre, a late supper, and a motor home in the small hours 1 Jimmy Ashworth and his confreres rendezvoused at the training stables, and had to do their stable work before they sat down to a homely meal at about seven o’clock; then, alter eight o'ciock stable, to bed; and next mormng at daylight they were clear-wilted for another day's work."

The remarks of Tod Sloan on the Buhjcot of JUngusa horsemanship did not appear to be very palatable to English writers, aud “Viligant," iu the “Sporting Times, gets back on to the celebrated American thus:— “Turning to the hie of the ‘Sporting Times' tor we see that wo plumped lor Alosa for the Oaks, and she won at long odds, beating the favourite, Sibola, with Tod Sloan on her buck. 'Tod' w 6 never associated with ‘modest stillness and humility/ and reading the remarks he is reported to, have made last week concern* ing English'jockeys, wo call to mind Ids 'chucked away' race on Sibola, winch, despite a bad start, ought to have been won by many a length. He was placed in much tuo same position that Lord UUfden was iu the St. Loger, and lacked the patience of John Osborne/*