IN A NUTSHELL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2205, 4 June 1896, Page 33

IN A NUTSHELL.

— Merganser is said to be doing fair work. — Ulster has become tha property of R. Allan. — Mr J. B. Haggin, of California, is 75 years of age. — Colonel, the trotter, ia now in J. Allan's stables. , — The Napier mare Solitaire is being put over hurdles. — Mr Stead has- sold Medallion to go to New South Wales. — Mr Te Kani Pere is on the unpaid forfeit list for £120 owinst the 0.J.0. — Mr John Watt, of Ngapara, haß purchased Cajolery as a stud horse. — Rebel got a severe gruelling in his race at the Forbirry on Saturday week. — "Malua" reports that Mr D. Heenan has bought the trotter Honest Wilkes. — They tell me the Canterbury Trotting Club cleared £600 over its last race meeting. — Robert Wilson, and not R. M'llroy, rode Lord Zetland in the Provincial Handicap* — Captive's owner has backed the horse at 100 to 1 to win him £1200 in the New Zealand Cup. — Mr V. Harris backed the double of Quiltiri and Maremma for £200 with Barnett and Grant. — Cadogan, once in New Zealand, sired Tornado, winner of the Brisbane Cup, after going; to Queensland. — The trotting horse Jack, formerly owned by Mr Jas. M'Kewen, has passed into Mr Hugh Craig's hands. , — This year's winner of the Grand National, The Soarer, was bred in Ireland, and fir3t ran as a four year-old in 1895. — The pony trotter Tickler is going back to Tasmania, with a very bad record bo far as- New Zealand is concerned. — • Mat Livingstone, owner otMarino, ia said to have been one of those who were excluded from .the Napier Park course. . . , ' — I saw Jim Allan the other day driving the two-year-old trotter East Wind; who is the property of Mr S. J. Mercer. — Unlucky Dan O'Biien was second m the Birthday Cup at Sydney, Response being beaten ■by a head in a rattling finiah.*^ . . T « . — A boxing pony now performing in London is three years old, stands 10- hands 2in, weighs about 30bt, and is au English-bred entire. — The Messrs Mi)}er, of Melbourne, always on the look-ont for junipers, have bouaht Artist, formerly trained by Mr T. Wilson at BaUavat. — Very few horses of note get named in the forfeit list* bat Freedom and Fraternite ace now

there in oompauy with Conjurer, Antelope, and Qiiibbla. — One Englishman says that they were " only a lot 01 rabbits" that Paris beat in the Nortuamp--tonshlre Stakeg> and there arc 20 of the same opinion. — The Vincent Jockey Club announces the New Year Handicap Trot, of 70oovs, ud fclie All-aged Stakes, of 25soiS, to bo run at the January meeting. — Nora Creina, winner of the Autumn Handicap at the Tasmanlau Turf Club's meeting, is sister to Moonraker, who is performing so well up north. — The Breeders' Foal Plate, of 10003ovs, a fivefurlong race for two-year-old 9, run at Manchester, was won bj? Mr L. Rothschild's Gbletta, by Qalopin— Biseita. — Ted Hanklns got a good lift out of Captive's wfna. To quote his own words } "On Friday I was atony ; to-day I wouldn't call the Prince of Waiea my uncle." — The Kirkhain-bred yearling by Gossoon from Spice, purchased by T. Paytea at the last annual eales for 300 guineas broke his stifle while cantering on the Randwick track. — Fiom Glen lanes (N.S.W.) word has been received of the death of Pasha, who went over from New Zealand and afterwards won the Wagga Cup in Mr Oxenham's colours. — - Michigan, who is full brother to the Caulfleld Cup winner Chicago, by The Drummer from Corisande, is being put over the light sticks, and promises to become proficient at the game. — Writing from Hongkong a correspondent says : We managed to get through ten races each day, for three ds*ys, from noon to about 6 o'clock, with a grand total of 309 starters for the 30 races. — Ata, dam of Maid Marion, a recent winner up north, is sister to Rangiat«a. being by Somnus out of Wairuareka. So the Canterbury Times correspondent says. Maid Marion is her first foal. — Mr L. Ruttledge is just about after an attack of inflammation of the lungs, the result of a chill caught probably at Oamaru. The dootor recommends him to winter up north, bo as to get strong quickly. — Crimson Streak, by Nordenfelit, won the mile and a-half race at Otakia, and evidently can stay a bit, bo we may see her befora Jong in events of a better class than those in which she has been competing. — Keferee saj s that the Wanganui owner of Sou-Wester is exchanging him for the forthcoming covering season for <ths Musket stallion ChtesVy, who has been doing stud duty In the MarJborough dist r iet, — About 1805 the English Jockey Club sold the farm forming the centre of the Newmarket course, but stipulated with Mr Salisbury Dunn, the purchaser, that the running track should be only farmed as a sheep-walk. — "Warrior," of Melbourne Spirtsmao, says that Dan O'Brien was born hi Melbourne, near where Kirk's Bazaar now stands, about 1847, and that his first race was on a horso called Smoker, his weight being at the time 6.7. — Of the Sydney horse Bell Metal, by Marvelleus from Silver Bell, valued at over COOgs as a yearling, the Sydney Referee says : From expectations of classic successes ho has descended until he has won the limit in a suburban welter race, and won it fairly too. — Perhaps the oldest living English jockey is William Noble, now in destitute circumstances at Gull»ne, Haddingtonshire, Scotland. He is in the 82nd year of his age, and rode Lanercoet, winner of the first Cambridgeshire Stakes, on Monday, October 28, 1839. — By a new law in Germany, all stallions and mares imported into that conntry hereafter will be registered free of coat. In case any animal imported for breeding purposes starts in a race, the fee of 250 marks, hitherto exacted, must be paid before the animal starts. — "Little Fete," whose proper name is Fong Ching, has been quite a plunger at the California trAcks, and it ia said his windings amount to 100,000dol, which has beon takou out of the ring by means of conspiracy, the detection of which has led to three jockeys and a trainer being warned off for life. — Dave Price has left £50 ab the Referee office to bind a match between his horse Prince Imperial and the winner of the recent Sires' Handicap, Brooklyn, who he understands is prepared to be matched against his horse. Mr Price is willing that the match be for £250 or £500, two out of three or three out of five mile heata. — Says Turf, Field, and Farm: "The breeding of racehorses and racing them i« as legitimate an industry as the growing of cotton, and it would be as sensible to obliterate the cotton business because thieves and gamblers are connected with it as it is to attempt to blot out a legitimate sport because barnacles aw attached to it." — The idea of the C.J.C. committee is that the new stand shall be available for men only. At present, said the Hoa. E. W. Parker, the grand stand was so full of ladies at the meetings that the men had nowhete to go, and the new stand would give members and others entitled to the privileges of the grand Btand a place where they could sit and stand and smoke. — "'Nemo," speaking of Mr Charles's fall in the Hunters' Race at Rosehill, says : The fall was n desperata one, and yet some of the crowd laughed heartily, and even jeered, for it is such. " fun " to see an amateur come to grief. And one-half that laughed so loudly,' and all that j oared, belong to an order that would not dare to send a horse at big timber if they got all the wealth in the sea. — Warpaint, who won the Adelaide Cup, is a caat-off from the racing confederacy composed of Messrs W. Bailey, J. B. Clark, and T. Payten. Mr Bailey said they sold Warpaint to Power as the handicapper always pat too much weight on the son of Chester. The Ballarat sportsman looked on and saw the outcast win without backing him,

— Says Sydney Referee; By reference to the record of fines levied in the racing season 1^93-4, which finished before the starting machine vraa installed, we find that on Randwiok and the suburban courses the fines amounted to £247 within 12 months. The machine has practically abolished these fines, which must bo a relief to the rank and file of the pigskin artiste who do not make large incomes. — The celebrated case of Robart T, Kneeb3, who was imprisoned in Germany for ringing in, has taken a peculiar phase. It came up on review before the High Court ftt Leipsic, with the result that tha indictment was quashed, because the lower court had refused to hear the evidence of 51 witnesses that was tendered in behalf of the defence. Kneeba, however, was remanded to gaol to await a new trial. — An unusually- largo number of horses' came to grief in tha Liverpool Grand National, and Ranger " comments as follows : It has been asserted that the fact of so many of the runners coming to grief " amply demonstrates the rottenness of our steeplechasers." It doesnothingof the kind. The state of the going on Friday was alone equal to putting an. additional I4lb to 211b on the weights all round ; hence the numerous mishaps. — The late Colonel North was chairman of two railway companies and seven nitrate companies, of a colliery company, and deputy chairman of a bank ; he was the owner of a brewery,, of cement works, of printing works, and of a manufacturing haberdashery business, of a typewriter manufactory, besides having a large interest in a distillery and an important house of business in Iquique. Besides all this, he was interested in West Australian mining. — The beautifally-bred Trentside, by Trenton from Lady Disdain, scored an unexpected win in the Maribyrnong Welter Handicap, says "Goodwood." He was ridden by a lad who had never previously had a mount m public, and this, coupled with the fact that he wai not fancied by the stable, induced the bookmakers to offer the long odds of 50 to 1 against him. Trentsido ran a good race in the last Bitgob Handicap, but never showed any form afterwards, and in March was allowed to go at public auction for 80ga, Mr W. Filgate buying him, Trentside cost Mr W. T. Jones 140gs as a yeailiug and he never won a race with him. —'Most of our bookmakers, says the Sydney writer " Nemo," have allowed an awkward habit to grow upon them, and it is this : When wagecing has fairly settled down and a pronouncad favourite has been establUhed, they combine to yell, "6 to 4 bar one," "4 to I bar two," and so forth, instead of calling out the names of the horses they desire* to lay against. Can (t be that the " 6 to 4 bar one " idea is in vogue in the lingering hops that some novice would coma along asking for a horse with a 10 to 1 chance, and, ia

hisjurnoTttnce, be gathered into the not by the 4 to 1 offer? Such far-looked-f or things have sometime! come off, but the game is not worth tho candle.