TROTTING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22268, 22 May 1934, Page 5

TROTTING

By Sehtinei.

P. A. Gordon, who has been associated with- the stables of. F. J. Smith, J. T. Paul, and W. Hughes, has set up as a public trainer at Forbury Park. The Marble Star gelding Indolent changed owners last week and has joined C. S. Donald's stable. •. Indianapolis soon wiped off his handicap of 60 yards at Ashburton: and finally won in 4min 3'osec. He went 4min 23see as a three-year-old.r The Invitation matches have proved a benefit for Harold Logan and for a horse under the suspicion- of unsoundness 'he has done remarkably well, The Man o' War gelding Compass, who won at Wellington in 3min 26sec, had a mark of 3min 23 4-ssec when racing as a two-year-old. last season, but failed to gain a place in the Sapling Stakes. The two-year-old gelding Ironside, who ran - second to Arsurii -. at Ashburton, is engaged in", the Sapling Stakes. He was ?ot by Wrack from Gatwick•; by Logan 'ointer —Precision by St. Swithin from Kildasa, a thoroughbred mare by Kelcheran.-'

Although defeated at Wellington the Sapling Stakes candidate Gamble went 3min 31 2-ssec on a slow track. War Buoy won the Sapling Stakes last season in 3min 21 3-ssec. The next best times in the Sapling Stakes is.Arethusa 3min 25 l-ssec and Silver De Oro 3min 25 4-ssec. • >'

■ Arethusa's win in the Sapling Stakes of 1930 did not damage her chance of subsequent success as' she is now a six-year-old and still showing winning form. Arethusa won both the races she started in'as a two-year-old. As a three-year-old she started in 16 races, of which she won five and was placed in seven others. She won.twice and was placed six times out of 11 starts, as a four-year-old, but did not succeed in winning .last season, when she gained a place in ty/p races out of 13 starts. .Arethusa is a sister to Wrackler.

• What has. been possible in the past should be capable of repetition in the way of breeding. -Experiments that bore good fruit half a -ceritury ago may. again meet .with:success if carried out on the original plan.-. One of the first, if not the first toexperiment in breeding thoroughbred mares'to trotting stallions was Senator Leland Standford. It is essential to success in that direction that care should be taken to select; mares of the plastic type and riot those of a high-strung, temperament. .': The records of breeding show that certain lines of thoroughbred blood has adapted itself to both trotting and pacing and level-headed thoroughbreds could be,used again with success as they were in "the past. The'first stallion to equal, the.'record of Maud S (2min 8&ec) waa Palo Alto, and the first to beat it was Surid'(2min Bisec). Palo Alto was by Electioner from a thoroughbred mare, and Sundl was also bred by Leland Standford, and • got Electioner — Waxand'. General, Benton from a thoroughbred daughter of Lexington. ,The' tnoroughbred mares generally figuring in thej>edigrees of pa.cera and trotters iri New Zealand are.to a large extent claimed to be bred that way, but most" of ; them are unnamed. Possibly they could be tracked in much the same manner as unnamed trotting bred mares in the Stud Book could be located if the authorities insisted that no unnamed mare within,the first.few generations of a pedigree should not be eligible for inclusion iri ? the breeding recordu". - Sometimes thoroughbred .marea who we're shy breeders were bred to trotting stallions, and probably those who, used them in; that way may have, desired to P- withhold, their names in connection with being party to what they deemed a mesalliance. Still the fact remains that an infusion of '•' the . thoroughbred can produce great results', and that is substantiated in tho note published last week, as it phowed that quite a number of the best in training are bred on those lines.