Howe May Add to Dominion Successes in This Year’s Contest

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26918, 2 November 1948, Page 8

Howe May Add to Dominion Successes in This Year’s Contest

New Zealand horses have played an important part in the decision of the Melbourne Cup, and with three recent successes in handicap events in Melbourne, and a second in the Caulfield Cup, the Dominion-owned and bred Howe appears to have an excellent chance of adding to the record. Howe was regarded as particularly unlucky in not winning the Caulfield Cup, in which he fought out a courageous finish. With 9.5 to carry in to-day’s race, he is called upon to achieve something that has proved beyond the powers of many great gallopers over the past 30 years, because in that time only seven horses have won, with 9.0 or more. As a five-year-old, Howe should be at the peak of his powers. He scored a runaway victory in the Moonee Valley Cup, mastering his burden of 9.8 with such consumate ease that he immediately became .a warm favourite for the Melbourne Cup. Up till his defeat in the Victoria Derby on Saturday, the A.J.C. Derby winner, Carbon Copy, was regarded as Howe’s most dangerous opponent, but apparently he was hampered by the going. Comic Court, who has 7.4 in the Cup, won the Victoria Derby so easily on Saturday that he must be regarded as a light-weight possibility. The last horse to win the cup “double” was Skipton in 1941, who was trained by the New Zealand J. Fryer, who produced Wotan to win the 1936 Melbourne Cup. Mention of the Melbourne Cup will always revive memories of Carbine, who still holds the weight-carrying record for the race. He carried 10.5 to victory 58 years ago, and he beat the biggest field that has ever gone to the post for the race, 39. It is fitting, in view of Carbine’s unsurpassed performance, that the Musket line should have been so much to the fore in the breeding of the winners of the big Flemington race. Indeed, it goes right back to the winner of the 1883 Victoria Derby and Melbourne Cup, MartiniHenri. The most amazing feature of his victories was that he achieved them at his first two starts in a race. Howe, himself, on his dam’s side, traces back to the Musket mart:, Necklace. It may be a happy augury for his success in to-day’s race that last year’s winner, Hiraji, as well as the second and third horses, Fresh Boy and Red Fury, were representatives of the Musket line.