TALK OF THE DAY. By MAZEPPA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2388, 7 December 1899, Page 35

TALK OF THE DAY. By MAZEPPA.

BETTING STEWARDS.

The Manawatu Club has rubbed out the rule prohibiting stewards or officials from betting at the meetings when they are on duty. It would have been better, rather than doing this, not to have made such a rule in the first place. The cancelling of the rule may be misinterpreted as the giving of a license to bet. I don't* think that % rule, of the gorfc referred

to is likely to be of much practical value i<? New Zealand. Amongst the men who follow, racing with sufficient keenness to qualify thetfj to carry out the duties of stewards, the great majority bot a little — say a pound now an<J< again. To deprive them of that pleasure* would be to spoil the sport for them, and convert them into miserable beings, and soonetf or later they would be sure to either cease sJn tending, or throw up the stewardship, or lwff. on the sly. This last-mentioned alternative would not be for the good of pure racing. A} man who did his betting through a third parfrjl and went about pretending that he was no| betting would not be the sort of person Uf whom one could safely relegate the settling of questions such as are ever arising in oon* nection with racing — questions that can onljj bo satisfactorily dealt with when the judge* are to be implicitly and sometimes blindly bi* lieved in. In England, and other placaa where there is a large^ population to dratj upon, there may be a choice ; that i 3 to say, H may be possible to pick out for stewards w\o*J who understand the game and do not toafc* Here it is different.- Only a few persons .it£ any given centre have the requisite know}* ledge, and if these are counted up, and lh<J undesirable ones drafted off, the remnant i& not a large one. Yet it is from this reninanU that our stewards must be drawn, unless, Jm deed, we go tho length of saying that chaTsirt* ter is the only qualification. \The positioa j' take is that character is the first essential coupled with knowlodge, and if we get esNi porienced racing men of high character if\ take the steward's office, we need 1 not both<£ them with such a question as to whether the)? have had half a sovereign on. a race. Some cw th« best of our stewards make a bet at oda times. I have seen tho Hon. G. M'Lean' pus 10s on a race, though this is against his practice, and Mr J. Hazlett has sometimes put £1 on ono of his horses; and these men are amongst tho best of our stewards. Of course, if a steward has a bet on a race, he ought not to vote on any question affecting the result o! that race, even if hi 3 interest is ever so small. • But I think the teachingo of common decency will tell them that quito as well as «. rule. Tho fact is that in our circumstances a rule of the sorfc is irritating, in that it professes to take the place of a man's conscience, and it it debasing, in that it implies Mat the persona concerned are not to be trusted. I think the jVlonawatu Club has acted wisely in repealing tho rule, and at tho same time it would have been better if the rule had never been passed.