IN A NUTSHELL.

Otago Witness, Issue 1970, 22 August 1889, Page 24

IN A NUTSHELL.

— Shifnal is in work again. — Tranter's selling price was 37089, — Tranter has gone into Mr W. Neil's stud. — Arsenal is said to be going aa well as ever. — Mao, the hurdle racer (by Anteros), ia dead. —The Greymouth Club has a credit balance of £258. — Recall is showing brilliant form as a hurdle" jumper. — Glogs has hopelessly broken down m Sydney. — Rewi ia now being trained by Charlie Rudingß. —Received : The Hawke's Bay Jockey Club's programmes. —Mr W. Kelso, the Sydney trainer, has 37 horses under his charge. —Secretary has been taken back to his ■owner's place at Duntroon. — " Kaiser " Myers has severed his connection with Mr J. Harper, jun. — The new Leger stand at Randwiek is capable of seating 8200 people. —The Squire, one of the ancient division, has left the North for Sydney. —I am beginning to think that Catamount may have a say in the New Zealand Cup. s — The costs in Chetwynd v. Durham are variously estimated at from £8000 to £15,000. ff A — "Augur" fancies 'that Abercorn, Lamond, or Wycouabe will win the Metropolitan. — Sam Mercer has given the name of Belvidere to hia three-year-old by Gorton out of Dione. — Dudu is reported to be sound. I shall expect to see this mare formidable in the autumn. —The New Z9aland pony Secret, by Vampire, won a pony race at Rosehill, on July 25. —The owner now says that Sultan will probably remain in New Zealand for Mb spring engagements. — The South Australian Jockey Club has 229 members and a cash balance, everything paid, of £884. — Lando, known once as particularly fast among the best of the Australians, was recently sold for a tenner. —At the sale of Mr J. B. Haggin'e Californian yearlings, a colt by King Ban realised 22,000d0l or £4200. —The first thoroughbred foals seen in the South this season are a brother to Chic and a sister to Kimb&ley. —Only one portion of the new totalteator house at the Forbury jwill be ready for the Hunt Club meeting. —"Spectator" has heard that it is proposed to call in the Canterbury Jockey Club's life medals issued in 1863, — Vaßistas, winner of the Grand Prix, has been bought by Baron de Hirsch for £6000, and goes into John Porter's stable, — Everton Lad was paused in at Yuille's auction in Melbourne. Sorella is spoken of as a good thing for the Hawkesbury Handicap. — The V.R.O. has declined the steeplechase j cokeys' request that brush should be placed in ■front of the steeplechase fenceß at Flemington. — Owing to the disqualification of T. Brown, the name of Centaur must be eliminated from the' acceptors for the 'Melbourne Cup — Whakawai has thoroughly recovered from his slight accident. The black horse is now all right and taking hia work like a real good 'un. j-Mr H. Beasloy has been suspended from riding for six months and fined £25 for improper riding at the Irish Metropolitan Summer meeting, '

—The Christchuroh Hunt Qlub regret that there are no funds available for assisting the jockey Hickey, who was injured at^tne recent meeting. I ■ — The Northumberland Plate, otherwise ' called " the Pitmen's Derby," had only seven runners this year, and the top weight among ' the starters was 6 10. — Mr Chapman's Postboy, ably ridden by Mr E Saunders, won the Ashburton Hunt Club's Point to-Point Steeplechase. Encore was Becond, Captain third ; four others unplaced. — The use of flags of different colours at various meetings denoting that the winner of a race has or has not. passed the scale satisfactorily has been found. to work admirably at some English meetings. —Gulliver is the first winner of the Hardi wick Stakes for the past five years that has started at odds against. Bendigo was 6 to 4 on, Ormonde 100 to 30 and the next year 5 to 4, and Minting 100 to 7. . ' " — The London Sportsman has compiled a list of the stakes won by the Duke of Portland from tho 20th March 1888 to {21st June 1889 at £6(5,087 183, exclusive of his winnings from i horses placed second and third. — The usually well-informed "Pendragon" says that the totalisator is to be found at all antipodean race meetings. It teems hopeless to expect that English writers will ever have' ! correct ideas about the colonies, — Sommeil is now in -capital trim. This gentlemanly-looking colt once stretched the champion's neck, and it is quite on the cards (says Sporting Wire) that Carbine would not now have so much the better of a struggle. — The new committee of the "V.R C. has j confirmed the sentence of 12.. months' disqualification passed by the Oakleigh Park stewards on F. Panetti, the owner, and O. Stratford, the rider, of Escapade, for suspicious riding. — The winning career of the Duke of Porti land's smart filly Semolina was not cheoked at the Bibury Club meeting, where she readily beat her three opponents for the Home-bred Foal Stakes. That made Semolina's seventh win this season. — Mr, W. B. Fasig'B well-known trotting horse Guy (2.12) waß sold recently in America by public auction for £4950. It is stated that the horse has since been resold to his breeder, Mr W. J. Gordon, for £200 more. At the same sale £2010 was paid for Luisun. — Grand Duchess, whose death was announced last week, had a pedigree that a blind admirer of blood could gu;h about till further orders, but she never could race, and as a brood mare was a distinct failure. She was by Traducer out of Peeress (by The Peer). The English-bred horse Metal, by Sterling —Fair Vestal, has been purchased by the well-known New South Walea breeder Mr ' Charles Baldwin for £500. Metal, who won the Viceroy's Cup and several other good races in India, will be used for stud purposes. " — The Stockbridge meeting was to take place i on the 3rd ult., and in the Beaufort Handicap Plate of 300sovs, one mile and a-quarter, I to be run at that meeting, Ringmaster was handicapped at the steadier of 9,1, the top weight bainp Cotillon at 9.9. The minimum weight was 6.7. — Mr W. A. Long's colt Daniel, by Neckersgat—Minnie, whose chance of winning the Melbourne Cup is highly esteemed in some quarters, ran a dead heat with Bellringer for second place in the Pace Welter Handicap of six furlongs, at Warwick Farm, Barnardo winniDg by two lengths. < — We have heard of jockeys who have their valets, their broughams, their hunters, and their racers, but so far yachting has been out of their line. The two Barretts, however, if report be true, intend to launch a yacht, which is at present in Thompson's Biiptf at Boston. Who wouldn't be a jockey ? — A return of the principal English winning jockeys on the flat from March 25 to July 12 shows that T. Loates has just beaten fee Barretts, the totals of the first five being — T, Loates, 264 mounts, 63 wins ; G. Barrett, 312 mounts, 62 wina ; F. Barrett, 232 mounts, 54 wins; J. Watts, 165 mounts, 39 wins; F. Rickaby, 199 mounts, 31 wins. — The Sporting Wire tellß us that Keith seems to have completely changed the tactics adopted by Harry Goodman with Moss Rose. Instead of giving her long half- pace work, he brushes her along at a good sound bat. By the bye, Keith has been joined by his brothers, who bave brought with them some stable boys from New Zealand. Victorian boys are not good enough. — Signorina, by St. Simon— Star of Portici, kept up her unbeaten record by winning the British Dominion Stakes at Sandown Park, but her latest victory was only achieved by a head after a desperate finish with the Duke of Westminster's Orwell, who was making Mb first Appearance on a racecourse. Signorina bad up to that date won four races of the total value of £5147. ' — The Canterbury Times reports me as re minding some of my contemporaries that "it was Walter and not Tommy Buddicombe who was suspended in Victoria." Ido not as a rule lay myself out to criticise what appears in other papers ; but in this case I must explain that the statement is incorreot. What I said was that ifc was Tommy and not Walter who was suspended. •■ — The stallion Kingwood, who was Bold last autumn to go to Monte Video, died while on the voyage. It now appears that the horse, who was in his day one of England's champion sprinters, was insured by his new owner for £3000, and it is said that the insurance company, before paying over the money, have ordered an investigation into the circumstances attending the animal's death. —The Hon. James White should be well satisfied" with the manner in which Tom Payten turned his horses out during the past season, Their records (says " Martindale ") show 27 wins, for wbioh they received £12,912 18s. For 25 seconds they received £2109 ; and seven thirds brought in £540, making a total of £15,561 183. The horses have been placed more than the 59 times mentioned above. — The following is from a Queensland paper: — i-A bet was made by Mr Anderson that he would jump with Mermaid over a fence 3ft 9in high, and that he would put a sixpence on the saddle without glue, gum, or paste, and the sixpence would be on the saddle after the jump. Mr Brodie offered £20 to £2 that he could not do it. The bet was arranged on and the money put up. Mr Anderson, however, forfeited the money. — According to Miss Kate Russel, mesmerist, who is travelling in the back blocks of New South Wales, the Hon. James White's colours are to be first past the post for the Melbourne Cup. Miss Russel, who is credited with several successful horsey predictions ia connection with the big events, quite startled a Mudgee audience recently, when, in her trance state, and in reply to a question from a wellknown turfite, she gave out the popular colours. — A discussion upon how much a jockey can know during a race of what his competitors are doing tends to the conclusion that they can really know very little. A knowledge of the pace of their own mount is about as far as they can go. The late Admiral Rous esteemed a jockey's judgment as of very little value. ** I have, of ten. made matches, h? once testified,

"on Jhe_ representation of the jockey that, if he had not done co "and so He could have won, and in 19 out of 20 cases I have found tho jockey wrong. Any man who follows the advice of his jockey is Bnre to be ruined." — A capital tale, illustrating the cheek of some fashionable jockeys, is told by " Rapier." The day before the French Steeplechase a telegram was received by the ateward of one of the Dover-Calais boats requesting that a cabin should be reserved for " Lord Robert Scott." When the Dover train arrived the jockey iv question strutted on board, and asked if there had been a cabin reserved for " Lord Robert Scott." On being answered in the affirmative, the jockey replied, " Then show me to it," and the steward, bowing and scraping with true British todyism, conducted his soi-disant lordship to his cabin, — During the .past rating season (says a Brisbane writer) the amount of £33,500 was given away in prize money in Queensland, an increase of £1500 on the preceding year. The progeny of Epigram won the largest amount of money (£3135) ; then came Excelsior with a total of £2407 ; Newbold, £2401 ; Melbourne, £1499, and Reugay £1053. The principal amounts won by individual horsea were as " follow : — Quicksilver, £1720 ; Greywing, £1810; Fairy, £670; Sir Anthony, £565 ; j Sleep, £565; Leinster, £530.' Mr C. Davw was the principal winningl owner with Quicksilver, and then followed Mr Hunter with Grey wins:, Honest Ned, &o.