PHAR LAP HAD NO EQUAL

Southland Times, Issue 23374, 4 December 1937, Page 10

PHAR LAP HAD NO EQUAL

Rated Better Than Carbine

VISIT OF VETERAN SPORTING WRITER

(Special to The Times) WELLINGTON, December 3. Mr J. Dexter, “Pilot” of The Sydney Referee, who has been spending a holiday in Wellington went south this week to visit Mr Ken Austin at the Elderslie Stud. He- is an active, cheery little man for all his 73 years, and his memory for turf giants is prodigious. It is 52 years since Mr Dexter last saw Wellington, and then, as a young man who had just attained his majority, he saw considerably less of the capital city than there is today.. Mr Dexter does not sigh and shake his head about the “days that was.” Rather does he chuckle about the strides racing has made since the Wellington Racing Club used to hold its meetings at Hutt Park. Mr Dexter saw Fusilade’s New Zealand Cup, and it was shortly afterwards that he went back to Australia. . Horses have been an absorbing subject with him all his life. He has not always been a sporting writer, but it is in the blood,” he explained, and his inherent enthusiasm for anything that touches on the deeds of monarchs of the turf must be catching to the younger generation of sporting writers who, over a period of some 40 years, have benefited by the wise counsel and philosophical nature of the “Grand Old Man” of his profession. HIGH REPUTATION It is scarcely right to ask a sporting writer on a recuperating trip to talk “shop” when he comes thousands of miles over land and sea to get away from it; but Mr Dexter’s news and views on horses and horsemen have gained for him a reputation that opens to him the goodwill and hospitality of every racing enthusiast in the land. Mr Dexter’s opinions of the greatest horses raced in this part of the world will be read with interest. “Phar Lap, in my opinion, is the greatest horse Australia has ever seen. My views on this subject are pronounced,” said Mr Dexter, “because of the fact that Phar Lap did times that were not considered possible in Carbine’s day. Making all due allowances for tracks and training methods. I do not hold that the thoroughbred has deteriorated as a stayer. Horses are travelling faster from six furlongs to two miles with each succeeding decade, and I don’t think the tracks at Randwick and Flemington have changed a great deal during the past 20 years. “Some racing men make a fuss about breeding for speed instead of for stayers, and there are always innumerable people ready to talk about the paucity of stayers. I cannot see that breeding for speed has affected the standard of our two-mile horses. Many more of them are now carrying their speed over the longest journeys than in Carbine’s day. I remember an opinion of Mr W. Alison, who was the breeding expert on Sporting Life, London. It was that he favoured a good mile and a-quarter horse to a plugging two-miler as a potential sire of stayers. SLOW IN MATURING “Many of our greatest horses have been slow in maturing, though it is an interesting fact that in the majority of cases if a horse cannot stay as a three-year-old it will never stay. Such a one was Peter Pan. Although not conspicuous as a two-year-old and early three-year-old, he blossomed into a Melbourne Cup winner as a colt, and was one of the few horses to become an even better stayer in later years. “I have vivid recollections of his second Melbourne Cup victory as a five-year-old in 1934. The track became very heavy, and his 9.10 sent him from favouritism right back in the betting. With one accord the ‘ring’ decided that no horse could possibly carry that weight under such bad conditions. It was his remarkable development after he turned three that enabled Peter Pan to become such a great weight-carrier. “I have seen some great three-year-olds win the Melbourne Cup but none so convincingly as Artilleryman. He simply ran away from the field over the last furlong and a-half just as though he had joined in for the run home. But he was never as good again afterwards.”

“What is the greatest sprinter you have seen?” Mr Dexter was asked. “Chatham,” came the unhesitating reply. “The greatest I have ever seen up to a mile. He had a paralysing run. When he won the Doncaster in heavy going he had 10.4, and the track was at least three seconds slow. He was always in my opinion a better horse than Winooka at a mile. Winooka was a great sprinter. He still holds the sixfurlong record in Melbourne.” OPINION OF PHAR LAP “What did you think of Phar Lap when you first saw him?” “He struck me as a big, leggy horse, by no means striking, and I knew only one man who ever expressed the opinion that Phar Lap, as an obscure two-year-old, would ever be above the ordinary. After he became famous, of course, it was amazing the number of people who knew all along how good he would be.

“There was a rattling good colt,” exclaimed Mr Dexter when Noctuiform was mentioned. “His performance in winning the A.J.C. Derby would stand out as a great performance today. He won in 2min 32£sec, knocking over 4sec off the record, and his time stood for 15 years. “Gloaming was a great horse up to a mile and a-half, but I think he was better at a mile and a-quarter. I believe that was R. J. Mason’s opinion of him, too. “Heroic was a good horse who was bad at the post. He should nearly have won a Sydney Cup, in which a horse fell in front of him. He never impressed me as a real stayer. It was his brilliance that served him. “Mollison, a most brilliant two-year-old, did not become a stayer. We never saw the best of Palfresco, either. He was an exceptional three-year-old shortly before he went amiss. Homer, too, met an untimely death.” CUDDLE’S RANKING “Pilot” has a very high place for Cuddle in his ranking of champion mares. She loses little in comparison with Wakeful, Carlita, La Carabine and Gladsome, and her present perfect condition at eight years of age, after more than one lapse, is, in his opinion, an astounding thing. “Cuddle looks better now than I have ever seen her in Australia,” he declared. Of Desert Gold’s performances in Australia he has little to say, except that the great mare did not come up to expectations. “I don’t know whether she quite struck her best form in Australia.” “Courtcraft has been a big disap-

pointment. What do you think of his future?”

“Courtcraft, you should find, will become a really good horse up to a mile and a-quarter. Allow him to run along in his own way, and there should be no doubt about tl»t. We did not see the best of him in Australia.”

Contrary to general opinion after the Victoria Derby, Mr Dexter still sticks to Avenger as the best staying three-year-old of the season. They are all good, he says, but he expects Avenger to be the best autumn horse. Ajax was a free goer who had to run along to do himself full justice, and for this reason he might continue to find it hard to get a distance.