NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8329, 15 January 1913, Page 9

NOTES AND COMMENTS

(By “The Judge.”) Sir George Clifford will have a fairly strong team in action at Trentham, when followers of the bluo and gold chequers will hope for better luck than has been the fate of the Chokeboro contingent this season. The team which it is reported Cutts will bring north will comprise Masterpiece, Brown Owl, Heathorbrae, Scottish Star, Trireme, and Briar Patch. On the opening day Masterpiece will start in the Cup, Briar Patch in the Nursery, and Trireme in the Trial Plato.

Mr Tucker’s gelding Euroco has quite recovered from the mishap he met with at Bulls, and has been pul into work again by J. Peachey. The Fordbll trainer, F. Tilley, intends bringing Tiwari, Snnbird, Austin, Sanguinary, and probably Nukuatu to the W.R.C. mooting. They are all reported to be very well, and should pick up a raco or two between them before they return homo.

The syndicate who formerly owned Labour Day did very well out of the tilly She could have been secured for £SOO prior to going to Auckland, but her trip and subsequent sale resulted in the return of some £2OOO. By the way, the syndicate have two oolts by Maniapoto and one by Elevation out of Labour Day’s dam. They ought to be able to gallop. The Electric Handicap at Trentham looks like being contested by a very small fiekl. Only seven remain in at present, and of these Culprit, Blue Lake, Peroneal, Lady Georgia, and Sanguinary are also engaged in the Telegraph Handicap. The Captain Webb gelding Kauroa, who showed winning form at Marton, was entered for both the Foxton and Trentham meetings, but it has been decided to run him at the latter gathering when ho has an engagement in the Anniversary Welter. The acceptances for the first day of the Foxton meeting are really excellent, the scratching pen having been very sparingly used. It appears as though large fields will face the starter in nearly every ©vent. Under the circumstances the meeting looks like proving a big success, for it is very popular with the residents of Manawatu, who always turn up in great numbers and make a picnic holiday of it. As the Foxton (Sip will be run the day before the W.K.O. meeting opens at Trentham quite a number of Wellington sporting folk would make the trip up to the coast town on Tuesday if there were reasonable facilities for getting home again the same evening. One of the early arrivals at Trentham is the Dunedin horse My Lawyer, who figures in the Cup with the nice racing weight of 7.11 opposite his name. The southern horseman H. Price will probably have the mount. Sir George Clifford’s team for the Wellington summer meeting will include Masterpiece, Heatherbrae, Briarpatch, Scottish Star, Brown Owl, and Tiresome.

Irish Kate (late Vulgate), by Cerise and Blue—Rebus, has joined D. Roberts’s stable at Biccartonu Th© brown filly Immer, by Martian— Everlasting, bas been sold by Mr H. Friedlandor to a patron of C. Pritchard’s stable at Trentham. The chestnut filly Golden Mom, by Cannio Chi-el—Good Morning,' has joined B. Longley’s stable. The same trainer is also breaking in a two-year-old colt by Glenapp—Perkin Warbock 11. mare.

Whizz and Gold Cup, two of Mr J. C. N. Grgig’s horses, are at present quartered at Riccarton. Fred Allsop, a one-time famous light-weight-jockey in England, died recently at the age of forty-three years. He won the Derby on Sir Hugo in 1892. According to the Sydney “Daily Telegraph,” since the appointment of stipendiary stewards for racecourses in the metropolitan district of Melbourne the sport within that area is said to be much better worth looking at, for the finishes as a rule have been unusually exciting. Professional stewards in power seems, to have had a salutary effect. Let us hope the same result will bo brought about in New Zealand. Stipendiaries will be acting at the coming meeting at Trentham. For a club that has only one day’s racing a year the record of the Oukaparinga (S.A.) R.C. is really remarkable. It has been in existence, for thirty-seven years, the first thirteen years of which it was a strugglc-to get along and make both ends meet; but with the introduction of the totalisator twenty-four years ago there came a change. During those twenty-four years, racing one day of the year only, it has distributed no less a sum than £110,393. Of this amount owners have received in stakes £55,670, buildings, improvements and upkeep of the course have amounted to .£17,403; salaries, _ totalisator staff, racecourse staff, printing,, advertising, and other incidental expenses have absorbed £28,692. In subscriptions and donations charities have benefited to the extent of £2443 ss, and finally the Government has received £5663 13s 3d during the last ten years from the club for totalisator stamp tax, or at the rate of over £560 a day for the last ten days the club has been racing on. c 4nce 1891, during the last twenty-two years, the amount put through the totalisator has been £444,584 10s.” Mr

A. Von Doussa has occupied the post of secretary for thirty-seven years—in fact, since the club was inaugurated. Owners and trainers are reminded that nominations for all events to bo decided at the autumn meeting of the Taranaki Jockey Club close with Mr E. P. Webster on Friday evening. The programme is a good one, and the entry list should bo lengthy. SPEED v. STAMINA. Ono of the features of the English racing season is the annual dinner ot the Gimcrack Club at York. The owner of the winner of the Stakes is the chief speaker, according to a very ancient custom. At the 146th annual dinner, Mr E. Hulton, who owns the Stakes winner Flippant, had a good deal to say on the subject of speed v. stamina, and although one may not entirely agree with his reasoning, his views are interesting as coming from a newspaper owner in a large way, "who maintains about twenty-five horses in Mr Hulton, in making reference to the growing disfavour of long distance •handicaps, said that he believed long races were watched by the public with more interest than over, but owners and trainers of horses did not favour them because they found more scope in going for shorter races and less risk of breaking horses down. “Perhaps.” said the speaker, “if a senes of long-distance handicaps of fair value were arranged by concerted action amongst the race companies, better results would follow.” Mr Hulton does not subscribe to the belief that the failing popularity of long-distance racing points to the decadence of the present-day racehorse. “Ho was inclined to think that there was a great deal of misconception as to what really took place in those early days when horses ran long distances. It will be-found on investigation that very few horses ran more than once in one day; that although the events were over long distances, the pace was bad, and, in fact, there was more dawdling about than running, except at the finish.” Calling further upon records, Mr Hulton remarked that from a glance hack at 1812 and later, it could be seen, there was a gradual tendency to out the distance and increase the pace. The heats do not appear to have been timed, and, in the speaker’s opinion, pace was the deciding factor as to the merit of endurance, and that led him to claim that the races of these times are far more strenuous and exacting than the old heats. He had no doubt that those old-time champions would cut a poor figure now. Believing that the real test of merit in a racehorse is the fast mile, hut to which many people are likely to take exception, Mr Hulton said that “the horse which can succeed at that distance amongst the best class and in the best time, is the horse that is wanted. The fast miler is the horse to breed from. As long as this type is produced—and it is being produced—there is no fear of decadence.” Passing on to racing from the breeders’ point of view, the speaker tackled the question of speed as a factor in breeding racehorses. Ho ventured the opinion without any reservation, that “the best stallions have proved their speed at about one mile. They may have subsequently shown they could stay longer distances as well. But no great stallion has lacked speed. It is the essential. Even though they have won the best long-distance races, pure stayers—horses of one pace, but without speed—have never been successful stallions.” In support of this conclusion Mr Hulton said, “How few Cesarewitch horses have succeeded as sires! On the contrary, in the Cambridgeshire —a very fast-run mile —many winners have subsequently become successful at the stud. The winners of the Ascot Gold Cup may be divided into two divisions, the first consisting of very higß-clacs horses, many the best ot their year, who had already proved their speed, such as Cyllene, Persimmon, Isinglass, St. Simon, Isonomy, Petrarch, Doncaster, Scottish Chief, and Thormanby. All these were great stallions. The second division might bo called the handicap class', with whom mere staying was a far greater characteristic than speed.”