IN A NUTSHELL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2401, 8 March 1900, Page 41

IN A NUTSHELL.

— Benzoin pulls hard. — Blazer has returned to Dunedin. t- Dunedin Cup-, 21st March — a Wednesday. — The Jockey Club of England is just 150 years old, dating from 1751.

— The Wingatui course is in splendid order for the Dunedin Cup meeting.

— Arline was on Tuesday scratched for the Publicans' Handicap. She is still a bit sore.

— Bobadil, favourite for the St. G-eorge Stakes at Caulfield on the 17th February, ran last.

— Lady Evelyn's two-year-old by St. Leger named NoLility, was racing at Woodville.

— Antarctic, who paid the big dividend at Adelaide, is said to suffer from something like gout.

— Sopp, the leading jockey in Germany, has an average worth envying — 75 wins out of 129 mounts. '•

—Mr G-. Martin, of the Thames, drew £ioa out of Tattersall's Consultation on the Launceston Cup.

— Malatua and Seahorse are the New Zealand entries for the Sydney Cup and Doncaster Handicap.

'.—. — Dunedin Cup acceptances are due on the 10th March, also acceptances for other events of the first day.

. — Quilted fell on the second day at Wood"ville, and Robinson, his rider, got his collarbone broken.

— About £500 was realised by the race meeting held at Randwick in aid' of the Bushmen's contingent fund. — The. Taieri Club has, resolved to instruct the handicapper to make the minimum weight for handicaps 7st.

—E. Rodea, Mx Hungerford's old trainer, is back in that gentleman's service, training "Wakawatea at Sydney.

— There is some 'talk of holding a race meeting at the Forbury in connection with the fourth contingent camp. — Paladin and Red Banner are now stabled at Mosgiel, in charge of J. Taggart. One of Paladin's legs looks a trifle suspicious. —L. Hewitt, who rode Ben Farley at the Canterbury Jockey Club's Summer meeting, went up to ride_ror Mr Tancred at Woodville. —Mr L. C. Haziett. owner of Benson, tells mo that he has bought a site, at Wingatui, and is having four boxes and a feed room erected. — The Wanganui Club pays stakes in rail, s=o the winaer of the "Wacganui Cup will receive £500. This means a penalty of 10lb in the Dunedin Cup.

— -The V.R.C. Patriotic meeting resulted in Mr H. Byron Mcoro beinsj able to h.tnd over £1703 for the Empire Patriotic and Bushmen's Corps funds.

— Take my tip and eiigage accommodation beforehand at the Dunedin hotels if you are corning down for the Cup meeting. There is going to be a rush. _ ' — Those who visit Dunedin for the Cup meeting can also " do " the Tahuna Park trots, and there is a 'gooi climce of also seeing the departure of the fourth contingent. — On Saturday last St. Ouida was scratched for the Dunedin Cup, JD-ecoy for the Publicans', and Abercrombie for the Hack Handicap. Ellis Bros, are displease:! with the weights. — Melbourne-brcc! Ebor, now iv England, won the Ringmer Steeplechase at Piumpton on the 12th January. He had 13.0, started at evens in a field cf six, and won by 15 lengths. Dollery had the mount.

— I "fell in," as the phrase goes, over ihe Poverty Bay meeting in stating that Strowan won "the County Stakes. The winner was St. Rowan, son of Strowan. These veibnl similarities are very confusing.

— Nikola followed up his dual victory at Launceston by successfully carrying 9.11 in the Two-year-old Handicap at Hobaii. This son of Che3teiinan is immeasuTably superior to the rest of his age in his native land. —Mr David James's yearlings did not sell well in Adelaide. EigHt were offered, and they only realised 23-iigs, the Light Artillery— Primula coX bringing top price, ilr J. H. Hill being the buyer at 63°rs. — Three of the race's at the Sale (Victoria) meeting were yon by descendants of the Musket horse Firelock, while the prineip?! event of the meeting was won by Orroro, who is by Escutcheon, another son of Musket.

— " Phaeton " says that "Red Lancer continues to carry a bright-looking coat, but the little son of St. Clair betrays unmistakable symptoms of unsoundness. and it will apparently necessary to keep him at the mildest exercise until rain aoftens the track.

— Carnage has left \is, remarks an English writer, and it is to be regretted. He was a good, honest, not qtiite first-class racehor«te, in appearance a smaller and more compact edition of Carbine, marvellously powerful for his size, and with limbs which looked as if no work could shake him

— Say 3 " Eeginaid " : Sealiovse is inclined to leg. He is rather rcaky quartered, 100, and doss not round up about the barrel. To put it into a word, Seahorse is rather narrow of build, and, without knowing, you would, at sight, take him for a gelding, for there is not much oi the robust stallion about him.

— Th& Chester horse Chesterman has made a good start as a sire in Tasmania, as Nikola, one of tho first of his progeny, won both of the Ewo-year-old races o-t the Tasmanian T.C. (Launceston) meeting. Nikola was bred by his owner, ~Mx R. C. Field, and i& out of Mabel, a mare by Manuka from Impudence, by Peter Wilkins.

—Mr Abe Moss, I* understand, named his Castor — Yivandiere colt " Canteen," as suggested last week: but I do not claim any credit for. the suggestion, because, in the first place, anybody could have made the same pick, and secondly, Mr Moss told his friends before he saw nay paragraph that he thought of selecting that name.

— Mr J. B. Haggin has removed his famous stallion Salvator from Rancho del Paso, in California, to his Kentucky breeding farm, of which his purchase of Elmendorf is the nucleus. Mr Haggin low has at his Kentucky farm 10 stallions and 300 brood mares. Six of the stallions ara imported, ar.d the list includes Juvenal, the sire of Chacornac. — The following is to be the programme for the Taieri Club's Easter race meeting: — Trial Stakes, 25sovs, seven furlongs; President's Handicap, 45sovs, one mile; Two-mile Trot, 35sovs; Novel Race, 25sovs, four furlongs; Flying Handicap, 30sovs, six furlongs ; Mile and a-half Trot, 25sovs ; Easter Handicap, 40sovs, seven furlongs; Selling Race, 25sovs, five furlongs. —At the leading American trotting tracks where the two-in-three heat plan was tried last •year, all the officials declare for that system in preference to the three in five. One authority says that with the two-in-three plan the best horse less frequently loses a race than with the three-in-five, because under the last-mentioned system more combinations to beat the best horse be worked out. — The Wellington Racing Club has endorsed the disqualification imposed by the Pahiatua Club on. a jockey who, under clause 158 a, Rules of Racing, was proved to have wagered on a horse other than the one he was riding in a race. The above rule only came into operation in August last, and this is believed to be tb.3 first instance on which the punishment has been inflicted under it.

— From late English papers I learn that v/ith the exception of three two-year-old fillies, all the late Duke of Westminster's horses in training will be sold by auction at Kingsclere early Sue month. A reserve will be put uj?on Flying

Fox only. The stallions Bend Or and Orine and some' of the brood mares are to be retained, but the remainder of the mares and G-rey Leg will be sold in the summer.

— The Captain was sold at auction last month in Sydney for 17gs. The son of Robinson Crusoe and Marie Louise commenced racing as far back as August, 1831, when, in Mr S. G-. Cook's colours, he scored a win at his fiost appearance. He has raced every season since then, starting in over 150 races, of which he only won 11. His new owner has an idea of running him at unregistered meetings. — Australian papers report that at the Harden races the disqualification of a horse, jockey, and owner led to a strike -on the part of the bookmakers and jockeys, who did not approve of the stewards' action. The jockeys decided not to ride in any tff the remaining events, and the pencillers closed their books, the consequence being that the Welter Handicap fell through, and there was only one starter tor the Farewell Handicap. — New York Spirit of the Times says that Thomas Burns, jockey for J. Y\'. Schoir and Son, and erstwhile idol of the New Orleans contingent, has been suspended indefinitely for insubordination and riotious living. Such was the verdict as delivered by Judge Murphy recently at Oakland, California. Judge Murphy, who is a member of the License Committee of the- Turf Congress, says that body will refuse Burns a license this season.

—An American vet. says that hd has been engaged in the care of horses for 25 years,_ and has yet to see a horse that was a£Eec',ed physically in any way by iaxnpas, except in the imagination of the owner. Jt is the same with so-called " wolf-teeth. ' They do not by _ some occult means, affect the eyes of horses, and cause them to go blind, nor are they resx^cnsible, as some good xoeople contend, for a horse being in poor condition. — Major Rirnington, of the Inniskilling Dragoons, in a letter written on the way to ivimbeiley, says: lam all right up to date. We have been in two engagements, and had another little scrap early this morning. I was lucky j^esterday, and probably won't be in as hot a corner again for Eome time. My orderly, a steeplechase jockey, saved me by charging a barbed wire fence when we were close under a heavy and unexpected fire. He broke the fence and fell, and his horse cleared. Then I got him up behind on ray pony, and we got out. — There is a growing ambition on the part of Americans to race in England. Several of America's leading owners have started horses there, and many more have made nominations abroad. From an American point of view this is Tather a matter of regret. " The success of American racehorses abroad may arouse national pride, ' remarks the Spirit of the Times, " but we can ill spare our beat hordes. We need them here, as well as every dollar that goes to make stakes. Yet there are considerations for which we can hardly blame a man for wishing to lace in England.' 1 —An Engh&h writ or has remarked: The English, climate is called variable, but it is its variable character that does so much for our horses. The long summers and constant sunshining of the south of France are as bad as tho long winters ot Russia. It is our plateaus, mixed with hill and dale, that give our English climate that diversity of breeze and freshness that I maintain has all to do with the vigour -of our blood stock. I should not care what tho soil was so l° n S as .they.vould get a good -blow that freshened the brood mares and made the yearling s and foals. kick and play, feel -themselves and make them. happy.

■ — At tho C.J.C. Midsummer meeting, say? Canterbury Times, an owner of a horse which ran in one of the races remarked that he could not understand what on earth was the matter with the animal. On track and public form he should have lun a much belter race. The trainer was equally at a loss to explain the horse's form, and an appeal to the horseman who had the mount elicited the unqualified reply, " Well.. sir, I suppose he's too slow; that's all that appears wrong with him. lie tiled ail right." Fortunately for the jockey, he was implicitly .trusted by both owner and trainer, otherwise very grave suspicions might have suggested themselves. .— Speaking at the annual meeting of the Newcastle Jockey Club lecently, Dr Doyle took exception to the action of the A.J.C. m calling upon Mr Fleming to resign the secretaryship of the local club. He considered it nothing but a high-handed action .on the part of that body, and went on to say that it was only in- keeping v/ith the A.J.C.'s .actions for many year-s past. The A.J.C. Committee had no right to arrogate to itself the right to be the parliament of horse-racing .m New South Tfales. It had already shown that it was equally as tysrannic&l as the Czar of Russia, and the sooner the country clubs formecl an. association of their own the better it woitld be for all racing that took place out of Sydney.

— New York Spirit of the Times says : Next to Rancho del Paso and Santa Anita, Ed. Corrigan has the most extensive breeding establishment in California. • At the head of his farm he has Artillery, by Musket, and R-iley, by Longfellow, representatives- of -the stoutest and best blood lines in Australia and the United" States. He has 45 brood mares, at least half of which are by Longfellow or by sons 'of li&ngf ellow. Modesty, who won the first American Derby, and who was the only fill/ td'ever win that classic, has a -yearling colt by Bassetlaw (imp.), which promises . to develop into a good two-year-old this coming season. Corrigan's entries are refused by the Califomian Jockey Club, and he talks of racing in England next season.