TROTTING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25277, 14 July 1943, Page 5

TROTTING NOTES

By Sentinel

The Auckland Trotting Club will give £3300 in stakes at its August meeting, an increase of £950 on last year. The Lucky Jack—Sea Pearl gelding Lucky Gem has been doing well and is expected to score additional Success in the near future.

The Canterbury Park Trotting Club paid taxation amounting to £5067 19s.Jd during the present season. The gross profit over the season was £7109 9s lid, and the net profit £2041 10s 7d. In his address at the Racing Conference Mr H, R. Chalmers laid stress on the fact that those clubs which had made a practice of including trotting races on their programmes should not reduce the proportion during the period of compulsory curtailment of both sports. In the 1940-41 season racing club programmes included 124 trotting races. The matter was discussed by the joint executives of both conferences at the October meeting, and the combined committee endorsed Mr Chalmers’s view that “ irrespective of the views held by some clubs on the question, no reduction, at any rate. during the period of restricted racing arising out of war conditions, should be made in the ratio of trotting events as previously provided by racing clubs." In an attempt to belittle the proposed new table of the' trotting handicapping system, a southern writer suggests (says “Abaydos,” in the New Zealand Herald) that where penalties are based on the values of the stakes clubs would slightly reduce the prize money to ensure a lighter penalty for winning horses. The opinion is expressed that, where a horse is to receive 48 yards penalty for winning £l5O and 36 yards for a lesser amount, clubs might reduce the prize to £149 19s lid in order to pander to owners seeking the lighter penalty. Except that it is a reflection on the intelligence of those who frame programmes for the various clubs, the objection carries no weight. In several instances under the present system, with its severe penalties, clubs could have adopted the suggestion without any difficulty. By reducing a £3OO, £SOO, and £IOOO stake only £5, the extra 12 yards penalty could be avoided. The fact that clubs did not do so shows the weakness of the criticism levelled at tire proposals for lesser penalties without altering the entire structure of the present system.