THE HONORARY STEWARD.

Otago Witness, Volume 25, Issue 2321, 25 August 1898, Page 35

THE HONORARY STEWARD.

The Sydney writer " Milroy " joins with other Australians in advocating the employment of paid in preference to honorary steward. It is, he says, an open secret that the Australian Jockey Club means to raise horseracirg well above its present level during the coming season by using the powers invested in them. Of course its best attention will be paid to pony-racing, which, as now conducted, is a menace to the sport ; but while it is cooking the pony goose it might wit'i profit pay some attention to the honorary steward, who has always been the real lio.i in the path of turf reform, and his presence tends to keep good men out of the sporf. He has failed lamentably in every department of the great) game, and will go on failing until he is abolished and professional men put in his place. The system practised by legitimate clubs of electing stewards to carry out the racing anu keop the sport clean is a bad one. The question of their fitness to deal with cases that are likely to crop up at a race meeting is never raised, but they are put into the position because, usually, they are straight men who ha/c some standing in the" world. They, probably, do not know a horse from a handsaw, and certainly nothing of the dodges of the professional horseowner who must get money somehow. The betting ring is a good source from which to gather information concerning the bona fides of a horse, but hew fe\v, if any, amateur stewards are there who can read the signs that can always be read, in th-) ring by the professional man who knows the ropes. Forewarned is forearmed, and if a steward is favoured with a hint before a race his task is made much easier, but where the honorary steward has to depend on a biassed outsider for a hint, the professional steward, if he know his business, coulJ get it for himself, and he will proi bably diagnose every case without the aid ' of outside evidence, which in almost every case is biassed. It is only natural that a. man acting in an honorary position — though his intentions may be of the best — will lean towards a friend or one who can influence his business. He has no master to account to; therefore, when a suspicious case comes before him, in 99 cases out of 100 he conveniently forgets all about the purity of the turf, and at the worst disqualifies the jockey for doing what the owner or trainer I told him to do.