MAUSER'S RETIREMENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2355, 13 April 1899, Page 36

MAUSER'S RETIREMENT.

Many horses of greater importance than this ton of Maxim and Auray leave the post for the paddock without any notice beyond a mere passing comment, but this big .fellow was at one time regarded as likely to develop into a great racer, and the termination of his career suggests a readable paragraph. To begin with, Mauser was strangely unlucky in coming in a season when the owner had more good^ ones of the some age than he knew what io do with. Bloodshot, Musketry, and Mannlicher were his contemporaries. It "was at the C.J.C. Autumn meeting of 1895 that Mauser made his debut, and his mission was simply to carry the yellow jacket in the Ru&sley Plate, Mr Stead relying on Mannlicher and Musketry for the more important task of opposing Gipsy (irund in the Champagne Stakes. Mauser won pretty easily, the only candidate he had to beat being Euroclydon, who a,t that time had not come to his best, ' and tho Otago colt was conceding 711) besides having n big handicap in the fact that the going was heavy. . That wah Mauser's? one appearance as a two-year-old. ' I reckon that hit, owner thought something of the Auray colt, for in the following season he associated him with Mannlicher in the attempt to capture the C.J.C. Derby won by Euroclydon, and later on sent him to Auckland, where, amongst other disappointments, he got floored in the Derby won by ITabulisfc. As a. matter of fact

Mauser did not win a race all the season; yet we were hoping on and believing in him" to some extent. Mr Stead, however, got full up, and sold the colt to Mr Murray-^ ynsley, who won with him the. "St. Clair Welter at Dunedin and the Shorts on Waiuku's N.Z. Cup day, and then sold him for JSIB to Mr J. Harris, but the horse continued to run in Mr Murray-Aynsley's name, picking up three or four races that were well worth the winning, though relatively of small importance as compared with the game he at first flew at. The truth is that Mauser wanted careful training and also careful placing in his after life. If Mr Stead, two yeara earlier, had had only Mauser to depend on we might have had Tiis name on one, at least, of the rolls of classic winners. He was and is a powerful upstanding horse of great substance and quality, a perfect king when shown alongside a lot of the weeds we often see on our racecourses.