SPORTING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11399, 17 April 1899, Page 3

SPORTING NOTES.

By "Mazkppa " in the Witni.ss.

THE FIVE-FURLONG RECORD,

Suzannah ran tho five furlongs at the C.J.C. meeting last week in one minute exactly. This is precisely ono second faster than tho record which has stood in Now Zealand over since November of 1866. 1 refer, of course, to Forester's gallop in the Flying Handicap at Spade Guinea's New Zealand Cup meeting. Tho course was pretty fast at that meeting. Mirella, owned, by the way, by Mr 11. Piper, our starter nowadays, had on the second day rattled off the five furlongs in lmin 3see, which was, I think, the colony's record to that date, and ou the third day Sextant broke the colonial record for four furlongs, doing this distance in 47jjsee. These performances help to prove that there was no mistake in timing Forester's gallop in the Flying Handicap. As a matter of fact it has never been questioned. There were some very fast horses in the field for that race, as will bo seen; —

Forester .. 3yrs 7 .') (Woods) ... 1 Russley ... syrs 8 3 (White) ... _ Pasha 6yrs !) 7 (Clifford ... _ Rubiua ... '.yrs B.Li (Pu dln.m)... 0 Rocket ... aged 8 9 iDenv.t.t) ... 0 Molly Bawn... aged S(i (Cochrane). 0 Apropos ... 3yrs 8 6 (Stratford)... U Jack ..vm 7 7 (Williams) .. 0

Galatea ... 3yrs 7 2 (Lagor) ... 0 ierra 3yra 7 0 iJackt-on) ... 0 T.rantnliis ... 3yrs <i 10 (CLrk) ... 0 St. Ives ... 3yvs fi 0 (Holmes) ... II This represented pretty well the strength of the all-aged sprinters of tho south that were available at that time. St. Ives, it will be remembered, ought to have won tho race in whicli Ruby established the sevenfurlong record that stands oven to this day; and, in Russley, ■ Molly Bawn, Rocket, and Apropos we hail a quartet any of which might havo broken records if specially trained for. the task. In the race Forester, and. Pasha made the running up to tho homo turn, where Forester, disposed of his opponent; but ho ' was at once taken on by Russley, • who made a gallant effort up to the distance, from which point Forester drew, .away for an easy win-by two lengths. Time.! lmin lsec, In that race, as in Suzannah's, there was a gale of wind blowing up the straight. In heating this,, the oldest record standing up to last week, Suzannah has accomplished a feat which few would have expected of her. On form she is more than a couple of stone behind the best of her age. Courtier can : give her that weight, and Courtier is not so good as Screw Gun. It would have been interesting to havo seen-what one of these cracks would have done in Suzannah's race. As a matter of fact they were a brace of indifferents that the filly was meeting. I am afraid that we can hardly hoist Suzannah to high rank amongst the two-year-olds on this one performance.'; She has shown extraordinary pace,, and tiie timing alone is a big feather in her cap, but the bare fact is all the praise we, can give her until she does something under a weight or in tho best company. But she may be coming up. I hope such wdll be the case. Meanwhile, her record is a wonder. It is not only, the New Zealand record, but half a second faster than Walwe's champion go in Australia, and it is only beaten in the world, so far as I. know, by two American goes—Maid Marian's S6|sec on the straight Morris Park course in October of 1894-, and George F. Smith's 59see in California on- May 7, 1895. '■."■•