LIFE’S ILLUSIONS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3869, 8 May 1928, Page 33

LIFE’S ILLUSIONS.

INTERESTS IN RACING. SYDNEY, April 12. Another of life's little illusions has ben shattered. The number of people in a sporting community like Sydney who are abyssmally ignorant of, and supremely indifferent to, the turf as a pastime, but who. by virtue of their station ” and wealth, are regarded as devotees of it, if only as a social obligation at Cup carnivals, is much larger than is ordinarily supposed. It is the custom at Cup time to publish the day before the tips of the owners and trainers and jockeys. This year on the occasion of Sydney Cup., one of the Sydney papers elaborated the timehonoured practice by asking the lending men of the city club and men and other.-, of some tonnage in the city—what ‘hey liked for the big equine event. It was taken for granted that at Cup time Randwick was the only place in their minds. It came as a shock to find that Sir Mark Sheldon. for example, did not even know what horses were in the race, that Sir Benjamin Fuller did not know the race was on ; that Lady Fuller, who knows a good horse when she sees one, was thinking only of Italian opera; that Miss Una Clift, who has horses running in her colours on the Sydney courses, did not know, and apparently did not care, which horse was going to win the coveted cup; that a man like Sir Arthur Rickard knew less about the race or the prospective winner than the average punter, and that, generally speaking, the very people who are popularly supposed to be the pillars of the ti.rf, at carnival time, know no more about racing than the man in the moon. If the average punter were as ready to admit his virgin innocence of the surf, the bookmakers would probably not be living in El Dorado.