STEEPLECHASES AND STEEPLECHASERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3884, 21 August 1928, Page 60

STEEPLECHASES AND STEEPLECHASERS.

HOUSES AND RIDERS

By E. J. Rae. ' Jack Rae is one of the last survivors of the Redwood-Cults school, which turned out so many of the best riders and trainers the Dominion has produced and inspired them all with high ideals of probity and sportsmanship.

Here we are in the concluding stages of the steeplechase season, and I am asked to write something about the best of all sports, it is not my job, but after half a century, of experience I maybe able to cudgel up something that will be of interest even to the lads of 50 or 60 who are still in the game. How things have changed! We have quite a new school, a new style, and a new idea of sport. The old-time courses and fences were of rough-and-ready order, and the man who complained of bad going or awkward jumps was counted a poor sport. Now we have gone from one extreme to the other. The totalisator has demanded big fields, and the fences have gone down accordingly. The machine and the trainers and jockeys are not merely lookers-on in these days. Of course, they are entitled to a say in matters, and they get it, sure enough: but I think this sort of thing can go too far. It is certain, anyhow, that if the obstacles of the old times were reinstated to-day at Ellerslie and Trentham the fields would be very much reduced and the clubs concerned would be out of pocket. At Riccarton, unless a change has been made during the last year or two, the fences still are big enough to try the quality and stamina of a horse; but they are so nicely placed, and the going is so sound, that any animal worthy of the name of steeplechaser should be Jible to manage them comfortably. I notice, however, that the Canterbury Club had poor acceptances for the National Steeplechase this year, and I fancy that the size of the fences was at the root of the trouble. FENCES OF YORE.

The fences at Riccarton in 1880 were some of the biggest I have ever seen, but the riders themselves made no complaint. The Agent got home alone that year in the Grand National, and repeated the feat in the Hunt Club Cup later in the same day, Horry Lunn, the best bigman rider the Dominion has produced, having the mount on both occasions. Thfences at Oamaru the year before were well-nigh impossible, and with the rain thrashing the turf and ploughed land into seas of mud not a horse got round without a fall. The Agent, the winner, was the best swimmer among the crowd that got into the water and its surroundings, and, being pulled out by the spectators, he got home first. Poor Billy Hawkins, who was riding him, did not fare so well next year at Riccarton. coming to grief at one of the shell-proof fences, and suffering injuries from which he succumbed next day. The club never erected such formidable obstacles again, but since has maintained a happy medium which should satisfy both horses and owners, and jockeys, too, if they have any say in the matter. At Waiinate. in the South Island, there was a meeting with very big fences, a sort of family affair. The Agent fell with me there before going on to Oamaru, but he was too much of a gentleman to do me any harm. Wanganui was a great steeplechase centre in the 'seventies and early 'eighties, and in '79 there was a quaint race there. I was riding Grey Momus, Billy Edwards was on Gazelle, D. Campion on Medora, Jim Munn on Mr Douglas’s Baron, and several others on various mounts. The course wound all over the place, round the sandhills, through the cricket ground, down an unformed road, and back to the winning post by a different route. I came to grief when about half way through, when doing very well, and got back to the “ saddling paddock ” to find a dispute go in" on over the winner. Gazelle had got home just in front of Medora, and Baron was the only one of the others to finish, about half a mile away. It was a misty, rainy day, and no one but the riders seemed to know what really happened. Finally the stewards walked round the course, and at the spot where the stories of Campion and Edwards conflicted they were accosted by a “gintleman ” from the Emerald Isle who satisfied them that the man “w’id the big whiskers was the only one that _wint the course.” Munn was the only jockey in the race that had whiskers, and he collected first, second, and third money for his employer. Those days we had our laughs together and were a very happy family.

MEN AND HORSES.

How I should like to have those days and those mates back again! Fred Hedge whs one of the pushing sort, and a bit rough at times, but at heart as good as the best of them. Lanky Tommy Lyford was a hard man to shake off anywhere; in fact, you coujd never shake him off. He might be down at the second fence from the start, but you would find him drawing up to your saddle girths at the finish, and you would never know how he got there. Horry Lunn was a polished rider, full of resource, but always a gentleman. If when riding at a fence he wanted a little more room he would not shout at you to get out of his way. “Kindly pull over a little, old boy,” he would say, as if he were asking a favour, not demanding a right. But there, a whole gallery of faces come before me, everyone of them that of a man. At the 1880 National at Riccarton I was in partnership with “ Roddy" MTvor in Grey Momus, Loch' Lomond, and Balmoral, and after Grey Momus had stuck up my mate at Ford’s double in the big race I took the mount on the grey gelding in the Tally Ho. I was close behind The Agent and Lunn at the double, but in trying to stop at the second fence Momus fell, and though I was in the saddle again quickly I could make no impression upon the chestnut wonder. It was at the second fence from home in this race that Billy Hawkins, in trying to gather me up, fell and received his death injuries. He was a good horseman, and as every good horseman must be, a good fellow. A year before I had seen The Agent, piloted by Hawkins, win the Auckland * Summer Steeplechase . from ‘ that 'little wonder Perfume, and my chief recollection of the day is the sight of dapper little Patsy

Butler, as he was then, hopping around offering to lay £5OO or any part of- it that his gelding would beat the mare. The mare, by the way, was ridden bv J. Hodson, who had to make up list 101 b after having ridden on the flat on the previous day at 7st 51b. FRONT RANKERS.

In regard to . front rankers among jockeys and horses there must be many differences of opinion. My own list I will no more than catalogue. Of steeplechase jockeys of the old school I should place first in order of merit T. Lyford, H. Lunn, and R. MTvor: of a decade later, W. Clarke, J. Hickey, G. Hope, A. Hall, P. Johnston, S.' Fergus, F. Holmes; of a still later decade. W. Young, A. Julian, and M'Flynn. Of horses I think the following the best dozen I have ever seen, subject. to revision when we know a little, more about Beati Cavalier: The. Agent, Conard, Clarence, Chemist, Mutiny. Levanter. Paritutu, Dummy, Hayden, The Guard. Awahuri, and Ahua. I can’t help thinking it is a reproach upon steeplechasing that jockeys are allowed to ride in the absurd fashion they do to-day. Photographs have shown us enough of the positions they occupy in a, race—sometimes on the unhappy horses head, sometimes on his ears, sometimes as far in the air as the short stirrups will let them go—to leave no doubt about the facts. No wonder jockeys tail off their mounts and lose races they should have won. I am satisfied that three-fourths of the troubles that come along in racing nowadays are due to the sil y exaggeration of the Tod Sloan seat, ''hat was more delightful and effective than the seat of Lunn and Lyford 40 years ago/ What could be more hideous and ineffective than the seat of the steeplechase jockey to-day? The comparison brings me to a standstill