RACING NEWS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 10064, 31 August 1918, Page 5

RACING NEWS

NOTES AND COMMENTS

(Br "Tohunga.") The pacing champion. Our Thorpe, was supposed to have attacked the mile record at the Addinston track yesterday. No information as to what he. accomplished is to hand. The Canterbury .Tockev Ciub's New Zealand Cup stake is ,£2OOO. the same as last year. Alterations have been made in the conditions relating to ■penalities. Formerly a horse that won' a stako worth Xl5O to the winner, or stakes of the collective value of ,£l5O, earned a 31b penalty, and a win of .£2OO entailed a 51b penalty. This year a horse will have to win .£250, either in one race. .or collectively, before lie earns a 51b penalty. The winning of .£350 entails a "lb penalty, and of .£SOO a 101 b penalty, which is tho maximum. There is a proviso. Tiowever. that no horse can bo penalised over weight-for-

"Yon are a horse-trainer. I believe?" said Mr Stock to .Mr Gaine Carrington, during the hearing of a ease in the Gisborno Magistrate's Court last week. "No. E am a stud master ono step higher," replied the witness. ENGMSH NOTES. The new Derby winner of 1918. Gainsti rough, is following most faithfully in the footsteps of his elder relative and stable companion, Xray Crusader, who was the hero of racing in 1917. The latter won tho Two Thousand Guineas. New Derby, and Gold Cup. prior to taking the September Stakes (the substitute event for thei St. Leger). A three races now stand to his credit, and unless an accident shbuld intervene he should certainlv win the St. Leger in the distinguished sequence. Taien altogether the triumphs in successive years aro really wonderful. They redound enormously to the credit of AJeo Taylor, the trainer of the horses, and to Bayardo, himself a great racehorse, mho sired Gay Crusader and Gainsborough in successive years. More's tho i>ity that Bayardo died a year ago. He must undoubtedly have become one of the greatest sires in history had ho lived the average number of years. Every time, his nam© crops tip we recall some of his exploits on the racecoarse. It was pathetic that his defeats in tho Two Thousand Guineas and Derby were duo to nothing else than a serie s of untoward events which prevented him being physically fit when the time canie. How clearly he was the best horse of his age he showed afterwards when he trounced all rivals every time they came up against him. As a four-year-old he won the Gold Cup ot Ascot—a far more formidable proposition than the Gold Cup at Newmarket! —in absolutely dazzling fashion. His son. Gay Crusader, won in similar style though under widely dissimilar conditions.

Then there was his tragic defeat by Magic for the Goodwood Cup. when poor Danny Matter rode over-confidently and held tho opposition too cheaply. Now it is his son iGainsborough, whose dam was the Oaks winner. Roscdrop, who goes into history as the winner of a Gold Cup at threa years of age. Oi itself it is a great thing to have done that, and Gainsborough is deserving ol all tho \ honours. Under the; circumstances it may not be gallant to detract from the performance by criticising the manner of his victory. He won by half a length from the four-year-old Planet, who was conceding 17lb. A really highclass horso should beat one like Planet at even • weights. Gainsborough would not hare done a0,,-ithuugh.' his.admirers say he won verv easily. With a good many vears' experience behind mo 1 should "not sav ho won "very easily,' but rather that his jockey showed some anxiety to get him first past the winning post.

Of Alec Taylor's share in these two years of triumph it may be said that he is undoubtedly tho finest tramer of high-class horses of our day, and the odd thing is that he is an odd, shy, reserved, and old-fashioned man who hates publicity. In many respects ho belongs to the old school of trainer —the professional stableman and horse-mastor who lived for his work, and was at all times extremely respectful of his patrons. Ono may also say of him that ho has never at any time been a betting man. A ftw sovereigns on a horse is a big bet for him, !.that is on the few occasions ho would wager, and yet there has leng been a belief that great coups have been engineered by the Manton stahle. It is true that Taylor's cleverness may have permitted his patrons and their i friends to benefit, but he was never a participator in the popular sense. Being old-fashioned in his ideas he may have had a predilection for secrecy, and in this respect he also succeeded. Hence tho frequency of references to alleged "Manton mysteries." His wonderful success can certainly bo attributed in no small measure to his great capacity for taking pains, his" thoroughness and personal attention to large and small details in connection with the day to day welfare of his horses, both inside and outside the' stable. Then he has deeply ingrained in him the instincts of a great trainer. Ho has an intuitive knowledge of the carying temperaments of his horses, of tho different work and food they want. His horses, if they once show merit, invariably improve as time goes on. That is why they make good three and four-year-olds, and show themselves fine stayers over long courses. No other trainer turns out so many long distance winners. This is not pure luck; it must bo duo to the man and his methods.

Apart from Gainsborough, tho Manton stable had three other winners at tho meeting, in Air Raid, Selaginelin gelding, and Prince Chimay, all owned bv Mr W. Cazalet. Air Raid frightened "away ill opposition in his race though there was .£SO for the second. How odd that no one wanted .£SO. and in these times too! The winner of the Now Coventry Stakes turned up in Sir G. Noble's Brufl Bridge, an unfasbionably-brcd son of Bridge of Earn, who just beat Monte Faro. The result, however, might have been different had not the favourite, Galloper Light, been virtually loft at the i;ost. This was a most vexations incident, but it was only one of many. Starting is the most discreditable, feature of racing in England. I.t is badly done, and the Jockey Club ought to introduco a change. It could not b© a change for the worse.

As regards other races at Hie meeting last week ho must not omit to mention that the three-year-old Irish Elegance, with quite a substantia] weight for one of ills years, very easily won tho Cambridgeshire Hunt Plate, and yet; at the Manchester meeting a little time ago Lord D'Abcrnon's Diadem gave him'lOlb and a beating. What sort of a wonder must Diadem he on that showing? The explanation, I think, is that Irish Elegance was ridden by a light jockey at Manchester, and at Newmarket the weights permitted of a much stronger jockey having the handling of him. Tho Warren Handicap, of two miles, ought to have been won by Mr Hullon's I?osemarin. who finished third. Tho jockeys, however, rode disgracefully, and after the race the stewards lectured several of them on tho wickedness of foul riding. They ought to have given more than one of them n long spell of enforced rest. Ttosemarin is the sort to win the Cesarewitch; so also is Lord Wolverton's The Viking. 13ut wu are looking a long i way ahead.