SOME NOTABLE SURPRISES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2429, 3 October 1900, Page 39

SOME NOTABLE SURPRISES.

Taking as> its text the resurrection of Ampier, the Australasian has a readable article on the subject of horses supposed to be dead and buried cropping up as winners of important races. Ampier's victory was as disastrous to the ring as was Arsenal's in the Melbourne Gup ot 1886, and for the same reason. He had been ijeayily backed, and there seemed no necessity to' do any squaring of the yards at the finish. [Arsenal prior to leaving Sydney for Melbourne in 1886 was heavily backed for the Melbourne Cup by the late Mr W. Gannon ond his friends. Then he went off his feed, and for days before the race. Raynor could not coax him to clean out his manger, and an a consequence he had to be eased in his work. That Arsenal was in a bad way was well known in bookmaking circles, and liberties were taken. Mr Oxenham has told us that he lost more over Arsenal than any Melbourne Qup winner before or since, and his victory closed the ca» reer of a bookmaker who up to that time had been one of the lights of the ring. The historic "dead 'un" of the Melbourne Cup, however, -Has the lame horse Zulu,_who beat The Czar and Sweetmeat in 1881. He was so bad that it seemed folly to start him, but despite his lameness and want of work, he pulled through, and established the fact that there is a vast amount of luck in the training of racehorses'. However. Zulu's win was something akin to a miracle, as, although the leg tood through that race, he only ran

onoe afterwards. The Pearl, who won at iflt to 1 in 1871, cannot be placed, in the lapiV, category as horses backed before the dvy li^j Aisenal and Zulu, because Pyfrhus was thy ■Byron Lodge horse that year, and The Pearjy wa-s always regarded as Mr Tait's second string. The Assyrian was well backed' for the Melbourne Cup, but was knocked out to 100 " to 3 aftei' failing in the Caulfield Cup, for which 1 * he was favourite. Several people won gdpq\ stakes against their will On Mr Savill's horsej whose defeat in tho Caulfield Cup was a flukey due probably to the late M. O'Eirien, who took the mount at the last moment, not xtn.* derstanding the horse Bravo was a resusci*' tated "dead 'un" in 1889, but although ona\ man laid £5000 to £50, "£IOOO to £1, anc\ other wagers against Mr Jones's hors6 on the; Saturday after the Caulfield Cup, knocking^ out was not justified. The horse had split his foot, but by the time the bookmaker started his onslaught he was practically al\, right again, and this his principal supporter on that eventful Saturday night knew. Ths> man who undertook to bury Bravo, however, was beginning to fail mentally, and not very ' long afterwards he died in a lunatic asylum. 1 . Patron, Malvolio, and Sheet Anchor were ali much better favourites a month before tho. race than they were on the^ay, but, excepting Patron, they cannot be said to have been regarded as hopeless cases. Florence must bo set down as the most notable ""corpse" to win the Derby, but she was still the ol her year. She was "dead " because MrTait, , starting two, declared to win with Pyrrhus. Fortunately for her early backers, Florence bolted with C. Stanley, and, being immeasurably superior to Pyrrhus, she won a longway, and there was wailing and gnashing oi teeth in the Byron Lodge camp. Rufus, m 1884, was a once fancied candidate supposed to have no chance, and how such.a moderate came to beat Barge- and Mozart has always been a thing for racing men to puzzle over. Blink Bonny stands out as the ieaaer of thai Caulfield Cup records ; but Ben Bolt, in 1886, was believed on the day to have very little' show by the great majority, and the bookmakers especially regarded the large sums, for which he had been backed in September as being as good a& in their pockets. Parisl in 1892, started at double the odds he stood at before being beaten in the Caulfield Stakes. Stromboli, who was beaten by La Tosca- in tha St. Leger, and sent to 20 to 1 in consequence, was ;t one time quoted at 8 to 1 for the Sydney Cup, which he won ; while Paris," Nobleman, Survivor, and Eeviver all won tho Metropolitan after having been sent to the rightabout through failing in the Epsom Handicap. Malua and Sting are the best illustrations of early favourites not fancied on the day who won the Adelaide Cup, and Sting,, who paid nearly 80 to 1 in the totalisator, was ridden by J. Williams, the trainer of Ampier. Probably a few more hoi-ses '" dead on their merits," ad a leading bookmaker always puts it, who have won important races might bo cited, but at the same time we* would not recommend people to back these - forlorn hopes. The betting market is right five times out of six. We have picked out a good many, cases in which horses the market declared! against have won, but a search of the records would probably disclose dozens and dozens, of instances in which horseasdeclared dead" have proved to be veritable corpses. The hostility to Ampier for the* Epsom, however, was hardly justified, and it was the same with First Water, who nearly won the Melbourne Cup and seventy or eighty thousand in bets for his party in Martini-Henry's year.