TROTTING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22719, 4 November 1935, Page 13

TROTTING NOTES

By Sentinel. Nominations Nominations for the Forhury Park meeting are due on Wednesday next. At Auckland The Auckland Trotting Club will distribute £5615 in stakes at the summer meeting. The Trotting Cup will carry a stake of 750sovs for a 4min 29sec class. A Protest Victorian owners and trainers have lodged a strong protest against the action of the Victorian Trotting Club in extending the limits with the object of attracting larger entries. It is rightly claimed that small fields of good horses are a much greater draw than large ones made up by indifferent performers. In Western Australia At the W.A.T.C.’s meeting on October 9 there was an attempt on the mile record for Western Australia. Nine pacers in the Show Handicap, with a limit of 2min 15sec, made the test. Huon Pic, who established new figures—2min llsec —for the distance in May last, though the winner of the race this time, failed to improve upon his time, his figures being 2min 12sec. Night trotting is not as favourable to fast time as day racing, and conditions were not exactly in favour of a record being hoisted. However, it was a good effort. Other winners at the meeting were: —Fayett’s Pride, Twinkle Toes, Lineage, Locanda, Spotlight, and Ben Huon. The last-named is 15 years old. Huon Pic. who was bred in New South Wales, has been racing in Perth for five years, and has won 15 races and £1628 in stake money. Progress in South Australia “ If 1 had any more room I could accommodate a dozen more horses.” So said R. Jamieson, who since he came across to Adelaide from Melbourne, where he did extremely well, has found it more profitable than being an auctioneer’s clerk, and has gained distinction as a clever reinsman. Jamieson has taken over the stables at Grovene, near Morphetville, and he has 16 horses in his stable, the particular highlights being Happy Don, P.vrniont Peter, Lady Machree, and The Grader. He has not started Happy Don

so far this season, and there is a chance ho may be reserving the chestnut for the Perth championship. Although he thinks a Tot of the ability of Happy Don, Jamieson stands steadfast in his opinion that Golden Gift is the best trotter be has ever handled.

The Mechanical Judge The “ electric eye ” is the latest innovation on American courses, and this device not only makes motion pictures of a race, but it records the time to a hundredth ot a second. A photograph of the finish is automatically printed by the mac.ime within less than a minute and a-half alter the conclusion of a race, and a photograph can be posted for publication within another minute and a-half. The State Racing Commission of New York recommends that the device be adopted by all racing associations, first because no decision of human observation even approximates the accuracy of the recording and timing device, and second, because the Racing Commission is convinced that the device will receive the unanimous approval of the racegoing public, Indianapolis Anyone who saw Indianapolis paralyse most of the best sprinters in commission over the last quarter of the Weston Handicap at Oamaru on Labour Day should be satisfied that the towering son of Wrack will have to fall down to be beaten in his coming engagements at Addington. Never was this figure of speech more appropriate (says “ Argus ” than in connection with Indianapolis’s future. He is surely fit to be ranked with any pacer in the world, because on Monday he approached galloping speed in his fierce onslaught to come from last to first in the straight and cut. down, as though, they were second-raters, horses travelling at close tp a two-minute gait. Indianapolis’s last quarter showed better than 28sec. and his last furlong must have been the most phenomenal burst of speed ever produced by a pacer in the Antipodes. Indianapolis was headed within three furlongs by Roi I’Or, and together they raced, with Indianapolis on the rails. Roi I’Or still had a shade on Indianapolis at the home turn, but when Indianapolis got through he left Roi I’Or standing. No other horse lias proved capable of treating Roi I’Or with such contempt as did Indianapolis, and his sectional times from post to post reveal that it was the greatest mile and a-quarter performance in history, America included. From post to post Tie was clocked to do 2min 33 3-ssec. This was from a flying start, and the world’s record, put up under similar rules, is Phil O’Neill’s 2min 33Jsec, one of the few American race records; but Indianapolis had to go 60 yards extra, and on a grass track. An American writer has told us that Directum I was a pacer with a flight of speed nearer that of a gajloper than of a harness horse, and lie, was the only American pacer for whom such a claim was made. His New Zealand counterpart undoubtedly is Indianapolis, and only an accident will prevent him from taking all before him at Addington.