RACING FIXTURES.

NZ Truth, Issue 473, 11 July 1914, Page 8

RACING FIXTURES.

July 15. and 18— Wellington R.C. A MUCH NEEDED REFORM. A matter that should again be brought before the Racing Conference, m the hope that, it will be forced eventually' to take action, is the practice of allowing the horses with jockeys to parade up and down and around tfce coiiirse^ for twenty-flve minutes, and very often much longer, bpfore , the start of each race. To the casual ob^ server the reason fpr this seemingly unnecessary delay quite obvious, and may be quite justified from a pro-fit-making point of view, but it is not fair \q the horses, less fair' to the public and ' nothing short of cruelty and persecution to the jockeys engaged m the race. It is understood that' the executive of the Hawke's Bay Jockey Club is moving to have the time reduced to 15 minutes" before the start That in .the, opinion of this scribe is. also too long a wait, but, m order to appease the desire of those gentry most; interested, m totalisatpr returns and promts, if there is any waiting to be done, could it not be done m the birdcage < instead of on the course? Let the jockeys mount and go to the post, say, five minutes before the advertised time of starting, or, if it is necessary for the public ib see the horses do the preliminary, make the time, ten minutes, at the very outside. .- : This reform is necessary m more ways than one. In the case of highlyStrung horses (which most thorough-? breds are) it is very detrimental to their prospects of success to have long waits before starting. As to the jockeys' point of view, well, one had only to visit the last Dunedin meeting to see the necessity for some drastic reform. Some . of the boys riding were so numbed with .the cold that they told the writer they could hardly feel the reins m their hands! ; Perhaps the racing authorities could devise some other remedy for this State of things. It, is undoubtedly a great f>ity and a great injustice tha,t .the comfort and convenience of so many should be subordinated to the claims of a few whose only apparent interest m the sport lies m the swelling of totalisator profits.