RANGITIKEI.

Otago Witness, Issue 2428, 26 September 1900, Page 39

RANGITIKEI.

! La<H spring the Rangitikci Jockey Club gave £4-00 for a one-day's meeting. This year the meeting covered two days, mid £790 was raced for. I mention these figures because some persons have suggested that the arranging between owner.-', which is suspected to i be ji growing practice this reason, is gener- , ally said to be the natural outcome of small stakes. Tn a sense that may be true as a general iToposition. I agree that the best way of ensuring straight going is to "make the prizes worth winning. But there is a limit to the capacity of evevy club in this j direction, and I think it unfair to charge the Rangitikei folk with conniving at roping when the facts show that the prizes over a two-days' meeting average £56 and a few shillings. If there was any rowing in at this meeting, the remedy is for the stewards to keep a bright I look-out and punish one or two of the principal offenders, not their servants. A few i words ag to the racing will suffice. Backers got on to the spot in the Flying Handicap in ' picking Cora Linn, daughter of the exiled 1 Foulshot. for after The Onyx had showed' the way to the home turn Cora Linn ran to^ , the front and won with a bit to spare. Thai; she had something in hand was proved theS next day when she won again, with 8.13, a.] rise of 161b, but a further attempt on hen pact, in the September Handicap, to concede to The Onyx 71b more than in the Flying gave The Onyx a show to get even, and tin;* was Drouiptly taken advantage of by t'jjS

aged one, who stpyjs the mile -better than the average of the hacks. Mcl wood, winner of the Maiden and Hack Flying, is a three-year-old colt by St. Leger— Ladybird, therefore half-brother to that good mare Lottie, winner of the Thompson Handicap. Melwood ran a few times last season, but these are his first wins. That they betrayed merit goes without saying, yet Melwood can hardly be real quality or fie would have made some sort oi a show in the seven-furlong race next day, when a bit of weigh stopped him. Coma, who won this Electric Hack Handicap, is one of Morpheus' s get. The principal flat race of the meeting was supposed to be a g-ooJ thing for that useful horse Will o'-the Wisp, 8.12, who, by the way, graduated at a similar meeting at Marton a year ago, and this member " ran well enough to beat all but one. That one was the outsider of the party, the unlucky Worry, son of Tormentor and Emotion, who, more at home than the others in the heavy going, led from start to finish and "aye the others no chance, the result being a dividend of £15 10s in a field of five. The Steeplechase brought out a field of nine, including Grand National candidates in Morag 10.11, Kaupri Gum 10.9, and Tally-ho 9.7: but none of these got a place, Cairo s speed and sureness enabling .him to put them all in trouble long ere the journey was over. Cairo is one of Gipsy King's best, and may yet aspire to front rank honours with the poor lot of 'chasers we have at present in the colony. The sum of £6135 was passed through the totalisator during the two days. Last year, one day, it was £3786.