CARBINE REPORTED A FAILURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2397, 8 February 1900, Page 40

CARBINE REPORTED A FAILURE.

The writer of sporting notes in London Truth makes the following remarks : I hear that the Duke of Portland is greatly disappointed and disgusted at the grievous failure of Carbine's first lot of two-year-olds. Having regard to the enormous sum which was paid for this horse, and remembering the prodigious trumpeting which heralded his arrival in England from Australia,, the writers who puffed him with such frantic energy must now feel rather foolish, and I should think they would be disposed to stick their faces into a holly bush rather than encounter some of the breeders whom they gulled into sending mares to Carbine at an exorbitant fee. However, some at least of those animals which are failures at two-year-old may do better next season ; but Ido not hear of any that are expected to distinguish themselves, in any special degree. It is foolish and absurd to judge a horse by his first season, but public breeders cannot afford to patronise sires which disappoint expectations, and every one who remembers the laudatory clamour about the Australian horses in general, and Carbine in particular, with which people were uauseated four years ago, mast be aware that it was then anticipated that the horse's first two-year-olds would carry all before them. Certainly, few horses ever had a better chance of distinguishing themselves, as Carbine v/as literally given a pick of the choicest mares at the stud.