SOUTHLAND SPORTING NOTES. (From Our Own Correspondent.)

Otago Witness, Issue 1922, 28 September 1888, Page 24

SOUTHLAND SPORTING NOTES. (From Our Own Correspondent.)

The all-absorbing topic here has been since the numbers went up for. the Tally-ho Steeplechase "What's gone wrong with Wardrobe? He is not mentioned." Surely he could not have started." Fuller accounts now to hand show that he did start, and more than that, that he evidently started very much off in condition. When I said so previous to the race most of this hard-working son of Duntroon's followers ridiculed the idea of it. I interviewed our jumping representatives on their arrival from your city. They speak very highly of the courtesy extended to them by one and all of the Hunt Club's officials, from Mr Syd* ney James down to thecaretaker of the dressingroom. Says one of the team : " You should have been there to see one of our fellows wasting to ride, and when he went to the scale he had to weigh out with a 311b saddle and[4Jlb of lead." No wonder the Birchwood hunting representative shirked his fences. There were very few of us here who thought Oivis bad a ghost of a show in tbe Hunt Club Cup when he went away, but now the cry is on all hands, " He is a good little horse." I hear he is turned out for a spell. His owner brought back with him in the same box what must prove a boon to the district in that fine upstanding and game bay son of Cadogan— Fallacy, Everton Lad. This horse put down such brilliant cattle as and Spade Guinea in j,the 1885 Champagne Stakes, carrying 8.10 over six furlongs in lmin 20sec. That' 3 good enough for Southland breeders, surely ! Training matters are making a stir, but of this I will have something further to say next week. I might mention that it has been actively rumoured that T. Smith, the year-or-two back leading light-weight pilot about this quarter, is dead. His friends will be glad to learn that this rumour is without foundation, as he is in Mel* bourne alive and well, and can't weigh out as a feather, but can draw the beam at 12.7.