OTAGO JOTTINGS

NZ Truth, Issue 817, 9 July 1921, Page 11

OTAGO JOTTINGS

(By "Galtee More.")

Fully a dozen horses, including several of Bill .Stone's ,have been shifted to Riverton. This will liven up Riverton a lot, and the place will prove a more suitable centre for Mr. gtone's string of good things. • Watty Taylor is .again coming forward with a £25 trophy to be added to the Wairio Cup event m January. The Dunedin Jockey Club will have some speaker, for their eight remits this year at the Racing 1 Conference, m the person of Lawyer 1-lanlo.n. That's one thing Alf. surely can do. Chief-Detective Bishop, one of our best sports m Dunedin, had a lucky time of it recently m the North. He struck the Napier Park and Hawke's Bay race meetings — and "ile" also.

Too much recognition cannot be accorded Lawyer Hanlon, as president of the D.J.C., for the great success he has made of his official sporting position. There are not many true sports m Dunediq, but he is certainly one of the very few. To his sporting attributes he has the rare good fortune to possess a most sociable temperament. Therein his unqualified success lies. As the song says: "He's the same to everyone." There's nothing narrow or petty about him, and goodness knows, Dunedin is stuffed full of narrowness, pettiness, prejudices and suspicious. We have said this little on Lawyer Hanlon, not as a mere matter of adul.ation; we don't believe m that; but as something that will help to spur others to emulate the. sterling good qualities of sportsmanship and sociability. The annual smoke social of the progressive Otago Hunt Club was held at the Overseas Club-room, Dunedin, on • Thursday last week, Mr. B. S. Irwin presided. There was a large attendance and a most enjoyable evening was spent. These socials are welcome additions to the activities of sporting bodies, as such free-and-easy functions lead to the best of good fellowship and result m progressive and smooth development for the clubs. At the Otago Hunt Social, Mr. R. Acton-Adams, m proposing the toast of. the "Owners and Breeders' Association," offered a number of suggestions regarding the steps that should be taken to increase the number of steechasers and hunters. Such breeds need replenishing and development all through the South, and it is to be hoped that some at least of Mr. ActonAdams's proposals will not be lost sight of. While our steeplechasers taken all round are the poorest of the poor, it must be admitted that the right kind of obstacle course is not available. As a great Continental writer remarks: "An obstacle course which is to provide a test of breeding material ought to consist of difficult obstacles, uneven going and -sharp corners. The obstacles as well as the ground should* prevent an uninterrupted flat race pace. . . . To win on such tracks. . . horses must be so prepared that they are always well m hand and willing to suit their pace to the ground. After having- jumped the last obstacle they must have speed enough' left for the final struggle." • A good wsek of pleasant, bracing weather enabled some excellent work to be indulged m on the track at the Forbury. But the -weather has now broken again and it looks as if we are m for an equally bad time of it, Interrupted operations are the grave disadvantages trotting suffers from during the winter here. Road work, however, is generally availed of at all times. '. One thing above others that the Racing Conference should endeavor to deal with, is the Government's thieving acts m respect to tote / fractions. The publio is being shamefully robbed m this direction — and robbed, too, by a set of jaundiced hypocrites which look on racing as the devil's game, but make a devil of a good thing out of it. At Napier Park, a bit of a waster, Baronet romped home m the first event and paid a hatful. A local Napier business man had given £2 to a working man to invest for him on Baronet. The workman, who was very much m the buwiness man's debt for goods obtained, duly got the tickets and drew the big money, handing same, to the lucky • man of business. The latter was so struck with the honesty of the bottom clog, that he wiped out the debt immediately, 'and the debt was no small one. Honesty is the best policy, even though at timps it does not pay as well as it did at Napier Park.