RACING NEWS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21829, 16 December 1932, Page 14

RACING NEWS

Bv Sentinel.

There was not a great deal of fast work at Wingatui yesterday morning. The trestles in the straight mark the same ground as that in use during the past couple of weeks, and the going has turned quite firm. Irish Lancer, after cantering, did a working gallop over seven furlongs in Imin 43sec. Cleaner was beating Fine Weather at the end of half a mile in 53sec. Reminder gave several lengths’ start and a similar beating to Malmar when galloping six furlongs in Imin 21 3-ssec. Gold Paper sprinted half a mile in 53sec. } K Blazon and Bold Brigand were not nearly extended when covering six furlongs in Imin 27sec —a sound working gallop. Gold Dress pleased more than Bell Hill when coupled over half a mile cast behind in 53sec. Worship and Shipshape were put together over a mile, and travelled the journey in Imin 51sec. Worship has been getting through a fair amount of solid work.

Witch of Erin and a Solferino gelding required 57sec to cover half a mile. Ruling Pen and Accumulate were ridden out when getting five furlongs in Imin 8 2-ssee.

Fair Weather got through useful work on the plough. Lord Argosy was allotted easy work, and others treated to lenient tasks included Blue Metal, Silver Paper, Arden’s Beauty, Guarantee, Lpchard, Shock, Daring Deed, Wealth, Princess Argosy, the Ravenna gelding, Red Racer, Colonel Quex, Mobile, Amy Johnson, and June the Third. Shamata and Gold Boy were schooled at the barrier.

Payments for the Auckland Cup meeting are due to-day.. Concentrate, Jaloux, and Azalea have been shipped to Auckland. Nominations for the Southland Racing Club’s meeting are due to-day. Acceptances for the first day of the Dunedin Jockey Club’s summer meeting are due to-day. At Menangle Park recently a winner was unbacked on the totalisator in a pool of £165 11s, The placed horses paid £lO Is 6d and £l4. Full freight is paid by some of the country clubs in in order to attract horses to the meetings. Captain’s Gift was a visitor to Wingatui yesterday morning, and it is understood will race at the Auckland Cup meeting. The .New Zealander I. Tucker, who has been riding successfully in Victoria recently, broke a collarbone through receiving a fall in a hurdle race at Mentone. . A ~, , A recent winner _at an Ascot (Melbourne) meeting paid £65 18s 6d for a win and £ll 10s on & 5s ticket. There were only two investors for a win and seven for a place. The Lucullus mare Miss Muriel died a few days ago after foaling to Lord Warden. The foal will be reared. Miss Muriel was owned by Mr R. Acton-Adams and wpn races in his colours. Owing to the poor support accorded by owners, the’ Hurunui Turf Club has decided to abandon its Boxing Day race meeting this year. The club will make a determined effort to run a double meeting next year. Since she defeated Pillow Fight in the Great Northern Guineas, Gold Trail has come in for much favourable notice, and she will arouse interest when she races at the Auckland summer meeting. R. Reid has been engaged to ride her in the Great Northern Derby. The Diacquenod gelding Hard Words, who did his early racing from the stable of J. T. Jamieson, is now doing the '“smalls” in Victoria. At Bendigo on November 30 he won the Flying Hanclicap, five furlongs. He started a hot favourite, and beat six others in Imm I 2«ssec ■The death is reported from Australia of the imported horse Legionnaire. He was quite a young horse, foaled in 1923, but so far has not been represented by anything that became particularly conspicuous on the turf. Legionnaire was got by Phalaris from Spcan Bridge, by Spearmint from Santa Brigade, by St. Simon from Bridget, a sister to Melton, a winner of the English Derby, who got Lovelorn, the dam of Nones, Menelaus, and whose daughters have been good producers. In connecton with the race meeting to be,held at Wyndham on January 2 the Railways Department has provided a fast convenient special train from Dunedin. This train, which will stop at the chief stations en route, will leave Dunedin at 7.30 a.m., and arrive Wyndham at 11.30 a.m. The first race starts at noon. The return special train is timed to leave Wyndham racecourse at 5.55 p.m., and to arrive Dunedin at 10.7 p.m. In connection with the Dunedin summer meeting, for the convenience of the race patrons the Railways Department has made special arrangements to provide a convenient service to Wingatui. In addition to the suburban trains, four special race trains will leave Dunedin at frequent intervals for Wingatui racecourse from 10.30 a.m. to noon each day. Return trains will leave the racecourse as required. The up and down express trains will stop at Wingatui to suit the convenience of the southern passengers. The evening train to Palmerston will be suitably delayed. The Railways i Department has provided an efficient service to cope with the popular meeting to be held at Waikouaiti on January 2. Fast passenger trains leave Dunedin 9.15 a.m., 9.55. 10.15, and 10.30 a.m., returning leaving Waikouaiti 4.40 p.m., 5.30, 6, and 6,30 p.m. For the convenience of owners and trainers a special train (with car attached), conveying horses from Mosgiel. Wingatui, and Dunedin, leaves Mosgiel 6.30 a.m., returning leaving Waikouaiti for Mosgiel 7.47 p.m. As it is anticipated a large number of owners will be patronising the Oamaru meeting next day, a fast special for conveyance of horses to Oamaru will leave Waikouaiti at 6.32 p.m. At different times complaints crop up about giving employment on the totalisator to ' men already in permanent positions. Everyone likes to see unemployed men get an opportunity, but casual labour does not always suit, and, in fact, would be dangerous in running a totalisator. The investments have to be handled smartly and very efficiently in the rush betting on almost every race. Mistakes are apt to prove very costly, and hence the work calls for cxptn t handling both mentally and digitally. This cannot be obtained except from men trained and tried to the work, and, of course, trustworthiness is a matter of great importance, and this becomes safeguarded as far as possible by getting the services of permanent men on the staff. A casual hand might find lumse f well out of pocket over the work if he had to pay for a mistake which may, with good reason, be even more annoying to the client than the man who made it inside. When totalisator inspectors were first appointed the principal of them advocated the idea that each club should run its own totalisator. That idea had been tried by some clubs, and it proved so costly that they were only too pleased to place the business under expert management. F. Herbert, an English jockey, has clear rights to the designation of “ much travelled.” Ho lias already ridden wiu- ‘ ners in 18 countries. Last month he

sailed for Egypt, where he will ride during the English winter. A number of years ago Herbert rode in Australia, where he was mostly noted for his vigour and use of the whip. In 1918 he won the Cup at Kyneton, ip Victoria, on the New Zealand-bred Beltane, for the late Mr 8. P. Mackay. Beltane had acquired a reputation for pleasing himself, but he probably never forgot his first acquaintance with F. Herbert, of England. The race was run over eight furlongs and a-half, and from the word “go ” Herbert never let up with the whip. The astonished Beltane led all the way, and scrambled home by half a head from Lucky . Bean, a performer popularly known as “ the Carbine of the Bush,” who had got badly away on this occasion. Since the Julius totalisator has been in operation in Victoria some large dividends have been recorded. The last course on, which it has been installed is Ascot, and, strangely enough, the largest two dividends so far have been paid at that course. When the totalisator was opened there for the first time on October 18 the record dividend of £l2B 2s 6d for 5s for a win and £l3 4s for a place was returned on the winner of the first division of the River Handicap. At the Ascot trotting meeting held recently the winner of the Progressive Handicap paid £65 18s 6d for 5s on the win machine and £lO 11s for 5g on the place machine. The win dividend was at the rate of slightly more than 262$ to 1 (says a Melbourne paper). The largest dividend previously paid in Victoria for a win was on Mystery Ship, who won the Mentone Purse on June 23. On that occasion the dividend was £37 7s 6d for a win and £6 2s for a place. The record for Australia stands to the credit of D.O.D. in the Goodwood Handicap in 1881. Each £1 invested returned £836 16s.

The death is announced in Melbourne of A. Williams, aged 74 years, who was a leading cross-country jockey many years ago. He was a contemporary of the late T. Corrigan, James Scobie, the late J. E. Brewer, the late M. Mooney, and A. Skirving, who trains for “Mr Rawdon.” Williams won the Caulfield Grand National Steeplechase of 1894 on Dondi. In this event Corrigan’s mount was Waiter, who fell. Corrigan died from his injuries. Five years later Williams was again successful in the same race. He won on Domino, who carried 13.5. In the same year he won the Caulfield Grand National Hurdle Race on Crysalite. Williams first came to Melbourne in the early nineties with Mr F. Tozer’s horses, and one of his first rides here was on Lottie in the Grand National Hurdle Race of 1891. The mare finished unplaced in heavy going when carrying 12.11. When he turned his attention to training he was appointed private trainer to the late Mr J. N. M’Arthur, for whom he won many races, including the Grand National Hurdle Race and Australian Hurdle Race of 1903 with Marmont. In the following year Marmont won the Australian Cup. In. recent years Williams had not handled a large team of horses, but a few months ago he was successful with Nitida for “Mr Rawdon.”

In abandoning the Cup meeting to have been held at Ballarat the committee added a page to the club’s history, as it was the first time since 1864, when the Cup race was inaugurated, that it had been found necessary to take such drastic action. Owners and trainers who had stayed over from the previous day, with those who had journeyed with their horses by train and motor float, were,_ because of the reputation the club enjoyed of going on with a meeting in face of adverse weather, surprised at the decision arrived at (says the Argus). Some of them expressed themselves rather forcibly, and, when the afternoon turned out pleasant, became more fluent in condemnation of it. There was disappointment, too, in the ranks of local business people and their assistants, who found themselves with a half-holiday on their hands, but robbed of the anticipated pleasure of spending it at a race meeting. The news of the abandonment was broadcast as promptly as possible. The race train from Melbourne was intercepted at Ball an, and passengers aboard were given the opportunity of returning, but several motor floats, one with six horses aboard, duly arrived. The club will be a loser, of course, but the loss will fall equally heavily in a comparative sense on others, especially the caterer, whose stock of foodstuffs was left on his hands, constituting a dead loss.

Stipendiary stewards are called upon to settle many difficult problems, but never have the stewards in Victoria been faced with one as difficult as that which they were called upon to decide after the Welter Purse at Moonee Valley recently. The finish of the race was one of the most exciting seen for a long time. Three horses passed the post almost in line, and the judge decided that Metallurgy and Wilts had finished a dead-heat for first place, with Pearlfisher a head away third. But just before the finish Metallurgy had hung in rather badly, and, interfering with Wilts, had forced that horse over on Pearlfisher. Consequently a double protest was entered. One was by J. O’Brien, rider of Wilts, against Metallurgy, and the other was by J. Buckley, trainer of Pearlfisher, against Wilts and Metallurgy. There is no doubt that Pearlfisher was by far the worst sufferer, but a successful protest by a third horse was without precedent in Melbourne, and few (says the Argus) envied the stewards their task. Eventually they decided to place Pearlfisher first, Wilts second, and Metallurgy third, and, as Metallurgy and Wilts were first and second favourites respectively, the decision was a severe blow to backers. Many who are inclined to speak through their pockets condemned the stewards for their action, but nobody can question the fairness of the decision if the stewards were satisfied that Pearlfisher’s chance was spoiled. An almost similar case was heard in Western Austialia a few years ago, when a protest on behalf of a third horse was upheld. On that occasion only one of the dead-heaters had interfered with the third horse, and the stewards placed the third horse a dead-heat for first and relegated to third place the dead-heater which had caused the interference. At Moonee Valley, however, both dead-heaters contributed to the interference suffered by Pearlfisher. Still, the problem was one which is likely to cauge much argument in future, and it was not a pleasant welcome back to duty for Mr W. H. Johnston (chairman of stewards) after a period of indisposition. Metallurgy was very heavily backed. He was not very well placed most of the way, but his finishing effort was really good, and only for hanging in there is no doubt that he would have won. Pearlfisher, for whom there was money at remunerative odds, went to the front near the half-mile post, and Wilts was nearest him at the straight entrance. No wadays, veterinary surgery is performing seeming miracles. Several months ago Nappatara, who is a half-brother by Trival vc to Versine, Hoc, and Petunia, reared on the training tracks and fractured a pelvis. This usually means the end of a horse’s career, but, as in the case of Denis Boy. efforts were made to save him. The Australian veterinary surgeon, Mr S. 0. Wood, was called, and the result was a scientific achievement that will long he remembered. Mr Wood took complete control of Nappatara, and for three months the horse did not leave Ills stall. During that time he spent nearly six weeks in slings. Nappatara will now be placed in work again at Caulfield by his trainer, A. Spank, the prominent rider of a few' years ago, and a nephew of R. Lewis. Experienced racing men who have inspected the horse have been impressed by the success achieved by Mr Wood.

They consider that it is one of the most miraculous cases of veterinary treatment they have seen. It will be interesting to watch the future racing career of Nappatara. Denis Boy was, for a time, thought to be a hopeless case, but since he splintered the bone in his leg he has won the Metropolitan and the Cantala Stakes.