RACING NEWS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26177, 13 June 1946, Page 7

RACING NEWS

By Sentinel June 15 .. .. Oamaru J.C. June 15 .. .. Franklin R.C. June 15 .. .. Manawatu R.C. Jottings Nominations for classic events featured by various clubs are due to-mor-row. R. J. Mackie is taking Platform up to race at the North Island meetings. Alpine has been schooled over hurdles and may do better over ‘‘the small sticks ” than on the flat. The bloodstock sales usually held in connection with the Wellington winter meeting have been abandoned. A revision of colours seems necessary as several jackets with “emerald green ’’ as the dominating colour were seen out in the same race at Wingatui Grand Coulee was bought for conversion into a hurdler. He has a good school master in Sphere in the same stable.

The Grand National programme has been published and is dated for August 3, 10, and 17. Stakes range from £4OO to £3OOO, and seven of the events have stakes of £IOOO or more.

Timber Topper gave a good exhibition of schooling over the Wingatui steeplechase course on the eve of the recent meeting and seemed in good shape for his engagements at the meeting. He shaped very much below expectations, however.

Winners at Wingatui with engagements at Oamaru include Sphere, Pencarrow, Money Bird, and Knight Crusader. Lost Art ran. a dead-heat with Brockie in the St. Clair Handicap. . Trench Law, who is engaged in the Oamaru Winter Cup, has started 24 times this season for one win and seven placings. He won the Morley Handicap at Westport in February with 7.0 in 2min 13 4-ssec.

Short-range handicaps figure on the card for the Oamaru meeting. The fields for the Burnside Hack Handicap and the Farewell Hack Handicap are covered by a little over a stone, and the Grange Handicap by a stone. The range in the Oamaru Winter Cup runs to 211 b and the Trial Handicap lot are measured by half a stone, A Costly Colt The full-brother to Dante, who was sold to the Gaekwar of Baroda as a yearling at Newmarket last September f6r the record price of 28,000gns, has been named Sayaji Roa, after the owner’s youngest son. The colt is reported to be becoming increasingly like Dante.

Race Train for Oamara A special passenger train will leave Dunedin at 7.15 a.m. on Saturday to convey patrons to the Oamaru Jockey Club’s winter meeting. The train is scheduled to leave Palmerston at 9.7 a.m., and will arrive at the Oamaru racecourse at 10.42 a.m. The return train will leave the racecourse at 4.55 p.m.. arriving at Dunedin at 8.35 p.m. A Lost Line

So many good winners trace to Miss Kate on the distaff side of the pedigree that the failure of the line in tail male is rather remarkable. The Miss Kate taproot has been kept alive by some high-class horses, including Phar Lap, Kindergarten and Golden Souvenir. Miss Kate produced sons in Perkin Warbeck 11, Sultan and Prime Warden. Perkin Warbeck II got some good winners, including Lady Zetland and Dundas. Sultan vanished into obscurity, and Prime Warden left nothing of lasting note when at the stud in Southland. Other sons of Miss Kate were “added to the list,” and she has bred on through two daughters in Antelope (by Apremont) and Catherine Wheel (by Maxim).

Gambling The setting up of a Gaming Commission to investigate betting in New Zealand recalls the fact that the citizens of Continental countries hold the opinion that England is the dullest country in the world. It is considered so because the “ casino ” for public play does not exist, although it is indulged in surreptitiously. Hence the following from an exchange makes interesting reading: Gambling for decades the long-shot hope of countless poor Italians—has in this post-war period mushroomed to proportions described recently by the Council of Ministers as “ pre-occupying and grave.” Since before the unification of their country peasants and city dwellers alike have been dreaming up numbers upon which to wager a few lire. From Sicily to the northern border, Lotto—the Italian variation of numbers—is an institution whose results are posted in the daily press. Lotto once led Mussolini to express his pleasure at the Government’s percentage that helped him to meet *me of the costs of preparations for war. So it is nothing new. But so. many clandestine casinos have sprung up throughout the country that the Minister of the Interior. Signor Giuseppe Romita, asked the Council to limit authorised houses to areas where there are international tourists, and asked the Prefecto and the police to combat the plague of illegal gambling houses. Rome's 11 Momento estimated that in the Eternal City alone 150.000.000 lire change hands on the green felt every night, with the house stake placed at 7.000.000 every night. or about 225.000.000 a month. (Ninety lire to the £.) These houses, the newspaper said, pay 20.000 lire a day each for protection against surprise raids.