Round the Tracks

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19375, 13 July 1937, Page 9

Round the Tracks

‘‘Cynic,’

l’ut Cup Winner to Bed

George Conway saddled War Admiral to win the Kentucky Derby, but you’d never guess he was America’s most famous trainer that night. He was found after the race, attired in an old sweater, pitching straw in his great star's stall, doing work usually assigned to a stable boy.' The veteran trainer insisted on taking personal charge of arranging War Admiral’s bed. —San Francisco Chronicle.

Huge Tote Total The totalisators at Churchill Downs this year handled more betting money than on any Kentucky Derby day since 1930. The eight-race programme drew 1,575,000 dollars, £315,000 -at par in wagers. The last time this was topped in 1930, a total of 1,641,949 dollars was bet. The record total of 2,098,701 dollars was registered in 1926. —New York Herald-Tribune. Sold to Breed Remounts

Breeders can make serious mistakes. In December, 1935, the brood mare, Camasha, was sold in England for a mere llOgns., and allowed to go to Argentine to breed remounts. Yet, this season, her daughter, Tamasha, by Tetratema; is one of the most brilliant two-year-olds in England. Camasha’s value wouid now be £SOO at least.

Couldn’t Jump a Straw Some queer bets have been recorded in Engand, but few stranger than this. Some years ago an elderly Tewkesbury gentleman rode a blind horse, and he taught his mount to jump. When he heard some sportsmen boasting of the great jumping feats that they had performed riding to hounds, the old man offered to wager a fiver that he would jump his blind horse over an obstacle that not one of them would jump on any mount they thought fit to choose. Needless to say, there was a hectic market. The company repaired to a ploughed field., The old rascal put down a straw, mounted his blind horse, rode it at the "obstacle,” yelled “Up, boy,” and the gallant steed leaped high in the air over the straw. None of the challengers could induce his mount to jump over such an unusual obstacle, and the fivers duly enriched the sly “steeplechaser.”

Mr. “Jock” Whitney’s Night Song, a three-year-old filly worth £SOOO, threw the boy who was exercising her at Newmarket, England, on May 14, and cantered back towards the stables. Night Song reached the NewmarketBury road, became frightened, and galloped head-on into a lorry. She was so badly injured that she had to be destroyed.

AUSTRALIAN TURF N.Z. HORSES ARRIVE SYDNEY, July 12. The New Zealand racehorses had a good trip across the Tasman. Fryer's team, including Wotan, left for Melbourne to-night. A. D. Webster, who is continuing on to Melbourne, where he will stay for about a month, said that racing in New Zealand had made a good recovery, but he wondered how long the boom would last. He added that the legislation of bookmakers seemed to be’as far off as ever.

DENTAL STONE CAST FOR BROKEN LEGS A STORY FROM AMERICA Dental stone, from which dentists secure tooth impressions, was tried successfully in America, as a cast to cure broken legs of two American two-year-olds. The story comes from the Reader's Digest, and begins on Labour Day, 1934, during the Gibson Handicap at River Down!;, a race track 12 miles from Cincinnati. “The favourite was Prince Pine, a two-year-old who had already broken one record and was all set to be the favourite for the Kentucky Derby the following spring. “That afternoon, he was winning easily when he stumbled and broke his near foreleg. The lower part of it hung limp as an armless sleeve. “Now, the vets, know only one way to set a horse’s leg. If the plaster cast is not to slip or chip, the wretched creature must be trussed up in a canvas sling for two or three weeks to keep its weight off the ground. “But this method puts such pressure on the horse’s belly that it wrecks its lungs and liver, and long before the bone can be set, the patient usually dies of pneumonia.

“Don’t Shoot Him” “So, at the tracks even when a horse is beyond price for breeding purposes, the moment a leg is broken, the order is to shoot. “Therefore, at River Downs that day, the tradition had a bullet with Prince Pine's name on it. But something deflected that bullet, and recently I saw Prince Pine tearing about a meadow in a state of almost unbearable exuberance, nothing at all the matter witli that foreleg.

“Prince Pine owes his present wellbeing to the blessed chance that among the spectators that September day was a Cincinnati dentist and his wife. When the disaster happened, the dentist’s wifp obeyed an impulse. Down out of the grandstand, under the rail, across the track she ran. calling out, ‘You must not shoot him. “The dentist, following in her wake, supported her, but all the vets, argued that Prince Pine didn’t have a chance, and the track authorities

said they could not have a buttged-up horse on their hands. “At last the trainer told the dentist he could do what he liked, and half an hour later these two impractical people from Cincinnati found themselves in charge of a truck into which they hoisted the hapless two-year-old.

Bore His Weight “Necessity gave birth to invention. The dentist set that foreleg and put a cast on it, but he made the cast of something that had never before been used for such a purpose—made it of stuff in his own office. The stuff called dental stone —the plaster out of which, for 15 years, dentists have been. fashioning the moulds they make for bridgework. “It provided a cast which solidified more rapidly and was far stronger than any previously dreamed of. So hard that Prince Pine could kick it all he liked without chipping it. So strong that within a day it could bear his weight. “Two days later there came to the dentist’s office a telephone call from River Downs. ‘Got another broken leg out here. Another two-year-old, Prince Kiev. Want to do anything about it?’

“The dentist got his wife on the 'phone. ‘Sure, if we’ve got one, we might as well have two.’ Before sundown, Prince Kiev was delivered at the stable where already Prince Pine was pawing the floor with his plastered hoof.

“And what’s happened to Prince Kiev?

‘He was away the day I dropped In, being galloped, getting ready to race at Latonia.” Can Be Mended It’s a pretty story, but technically inaccurate. “Eighty per cent of fractures can be mended,” declared the Randwick veterinary surgeon, Mr. Roy Stewart, 'The impression that a horse’s broken leg cannot knit is incorrect. Admittedly there are certain parts that don’t lend themselves to easy repair. The tension of the muscles and the bruising that accompany a fracture are so intense that sometimes the surrounding tissue dies.

'Horses are never put in slings if it can be avoided, and the slings are only used to prevent the risk of a horse’s lying on the offending part and causing further displacement, but the slings have no effect on the lungs and do not produce pneumonia. "I don't know whether dental stone has ever been used in Australia for a cast, but it is commonly used for plugging lip holes in a horse’s hoof,’’ said Mr. Stewart.