TROTTING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22023, 4 August 1933, Page 4

TROTTING

By Sentinel.

John Jinks is said to be working better at present than at any previous part of his career. Much interest will be aroused when Indianapolis steps on the Addington track to-morrow. He is, with good reason, regarded as a coming champion. At the annual meeting of the New Zealand Metropolitan Trotting Club, it was decided that there should be three additional stewards appointed, and those positions have been filled by Messrs A. T. Donnelly, G. Rutherford, and D. F. Glanville, who were recently elected. Messrs Rutherford and Glanville have acted in the capacity of honorary stewards during the last two seasons. - Roi I’Or was brought out on the track at Addington on Tuesday morning, but affifer a little warming up the. lameness he displayed on his arrival had become worse instead of better, so his trainer, J. J. Kennerley, took him honm again. The seat of the trouble is in a hind fetlock joint and is such that there is little hope of Roi I’Or’s racing at the approaching meeting. The same'trouble has been experienced by this brilliant pacer on previous occasions, but it is particularly unfortunate that he should have a recurrence on the eve of aq. important fixture for which he had completed a very solid preparation, A few months ago a leading remsmaii of Sydney—Jack Watts—produced a rather common-looking brown gelding on the Sydney training tracks. Trotting men gave him a casual glance and forgot him, but Watts knew he had something out of the oridnary, and quickly proved it by winning with the greatest of ease all the restricted class races and making such time that this fine pacer, Master, Ribbons, is now handicapped on 72yds bhd in one mile and a-half races among open company. Good judges expect this Lee Ribbon—Juno gelding, now five years old, to eventually prove the greatest stayer Sydney has seen for many a long day. Hia trainer and owner, J. Watts, is very shrewd in placing this fine pacer, and a notable feature of his winning efforts is the practically unlimited stable commission. If he ever goes to New Zealand (says a Sydney paper) be is sure to make his mark in distance among the champions of the “ shaky isles.” The Metropolitan Tnotting Club, which provides the best harness racing and attracts the best pacers in the southern hemisphere, is a lineal descendant of the old Lancaster Park Trotting Club. In these clays of Roi I’Ors, Harold Logans, TndianapOlises, and War Buoys a pacer which cannot reel off miles faster than 2min Issec is out of place in the slowest class provided at the.“ Met.” It is interesting, therefore (says an exchange) to glance back 40 years to the Lancaster Park days and contemplate the amazing strides made by the sport. It is now a common sight to see half a dozen horses flashing under the wire at a 2.10 gait. Such thrills were not given to trotting patrons in the days when the game was almost outside the pale of respectability. At a Lancaster Park “National” fixture in the early nineties the Maiden Trot was won by a furlong by Kangaroo, who was unbacked on the totalise tor and who took 3min 22scc to cover the mile. A two-mile handicap was won by a margin of 50 yards in smin 38sec. The big race of the day was run under saddle, the stake being £4O. The winner, who registered smin 52sec, won by 120 yards. The winner of a three-mile event occupied Smin 38sec, and a mile in saddle took 2rnin 56sec. A two-mile selling trot was won by a furlong and a-half in Cmin 4sec, there being a gap of 52 seconds between the scratch horse and those on the limit. Needless to say, trotting then did not draw a crowd such as will bo present at Addington on Saturday next. Another striking illustration of the advance of trotting is furnished by the Ashburton Club. In the spring o,f the same year as the meeting just referred to this club put £352 through the machine for the day. There was a dead heat in the threemile race, and it was run off!