AUSTRALIAN TURF ACTIVITIES

Southland Times, Issue 23855, 28 June 1939, Page 10

AUSTRALIAN TURF ACTIVITIES

MELBOURNE’S GRAND NATIONALS PROMISE OF NIGHTMARCH COLT By SIR MODRED The Victorian Racing Club’s Grand National meeting will open on Saturday, July 1. His success across country at Moonee Valley on Saturday will please Giant Killer’s National admirers. ■ The Melbourne Hunt Club will hold a jumping meeting at Moonee Valley tomorrow (Wednesday). In Sydney the Ascot R.C. will race tomorrow, and the Canterbury Park R.C. hold a meeting on Saturday. Opening on Saturday, the V.R.C. National fixture will,extend over Wednesday and Saturday (July 8). The leading event at Flemington this week is the Grand National Hurdle Race, £2OOO (three miles). The V.R.C. Grand National Steeplechase, £2500 (about 3m. and a fur.) is due on Saturday, July 8. . The new false rail at Randwick leading into the straight, is said to favour horses drawn for outside positions m six-furlong events. Cherry Jack, by David, who ranks as Sydney’s coming champion battentopper, may be a candidate for th© V.R.C. Grand National Hurdles. Intended for racing in .spring Cup events, the English horse Caithness has gone amiss and will leave L. Robertson s team for stud quarters. \ ■ Sydney’s leading lady owner,,Mrs D. L. Clayton, with a small team to bear her turf banner, has won 40 races during the past four years. With two recent wins over the battens to his account, under heavy poundage, Pooley Bridge heads the market for the V.R.C. National Hurdles. TRAINING. ON The South Australian cross-country performer, Grantley, who won the Great Eastern Steeplechase at the Onkaparinga meeting at Easter time, and ran third in the V.R.C. Grand National Steeplechase last season, when Green Cape won, is training on soundly in Melbourne. Provided he retains his form on the tracks, Grantley will have a great following when the National Steeplechase is run-at Flemington next week. In Melbourne on June 21 Deckard was favourite for the V.R.C. Grand National Steeplechase, but he may be deposed from his proud position. The Sydney candidate Turf Boy is to be ridden in the race by Melbourne’s crack cross-country horseman A. Fullarton, and this engagement will mean a great deal with the general public and many astute backers. Fullarton is a rider of the first water and a horseman who has been held in deservedly high, favour in Victoria and elsewhere for several seasons. ‘ Students of the turf residing in the Dominion and Australia will note with satisfaction that a colt called. Strategy was included in the list of winners at Moonee Valley races on Saturday. For some time past this son of Nightmarch and Cheloma has been hailed in Melbourne as a rising three-year-old more than likely to attain high rank as a racehorse and he appears to be going on the right way as his latest success was easily gained in the Bumewang Handicap, £4OO (6fur.). His sire Nightmarch, who was educated and first trained to display exceptional promise on the Southland R.C.’s tracks, carried on to win the Melbourne Cup, N.Z. Cup, N.Z. Derby, and many other important events and thereby gain inclusion in the select band of great racehorses bred in New Zealand. The son of Night Raid ‘(imp.)-Marsa, by Martian, has yet to sire a thigh-class turf performer, but with age his progeny are forging - to the front as handicap winners and champions of his line may yet appear upon the scene. Virile, of striking conformation, and aristocratic strains of blood each way, Nightmarch should beget valuable gallopers. The Melbourne colt Strategy claims as his dam the imported English mare Cheloma, a matron descending in maternal family from Chelandry, Illuminata, and Paraffin, three mares of world-wide fame as producers of brilliant and stout progeny. Turoa Webster, the New Zealand jockey from Otaki, who has gained an enviable reputation as a horseman in Melbourne during the past few years, is about to retire from the saddle. He will take out a trainer’s licence and endeavour to follow in the footsteps of his father, A. D. Webster, in preparing winners. Mr Webster, sen., has proved one of the most successful Dominion owner-trainers to habitually visit Australia for many years past. Turoa Webster loves the jumping game, but as the r'esult of a fall early in his career as a jockey he had a kidney removed and this decided him against riding over fences. As a pilot to heavily-weighted horses in Melbourne during several years past he had no superior as a horseman until increasing weight necessitated standing down. LEADING JOCKEYS

A great tussle is in progress for the leading honours in jockey circles in Melbourne for the current season. At the present juncture Harold Badger is one and a half points ahead of A. Dewhurst, with W. Elliott in third place, and the New Zealander Ashley Reed not far away. In Australia a head-heat counts half a point, whereas a win would be credited to a New Zealand jockey in the Dominion. Ashley Reed may improve his position before the season closes next month, as a heavier scale of weights during the winter campaign is all in his favour and he is invariably entrusted with the best of mounts in public. The Wellington rider is getting up in years, but he is still a first flight jockey as the fruits of careful living. In Australia stipendiary stewards do not adopt kid-glove methods when dealing with jockeys. At a meeting in Perth recently the well-known rider, R. Percival, who is very alert at the barrier, jumped Taj out to the front smartly to win narrowly. For his action is starting, from No. 1 instead of his right position, No. 3 at the barrier. Percival was fined £lO and warned that a repetition of the offence would result in suspension of at least three months. Taking places at the starting post to which they are not entitled is a more common practice with New Zealand jockeys than is generally recognized and stipendiary officials are very often to blame for overlooking what is a serious matter, particularly where short distance races of from four to six furlongs are concerned. David is rapidly assuming rank as the best and most consistent sire of jumpers in Australia and during the current season his sons have been successful in several of the states of the Commonwealth in high-class company. From a New Zealand point of view this is a fact to engender satisfaction as David was by Baverstock, by Maltster (son of Bill of Portland imp., and by St. Simon). In turn Baverstock’s dam was one of Australia’s greatest racing mares in Wakeful, by Trenton, a son of Musket, and one of the best racehorses and sires ever bred in the Dominion, a horse whose ifluence spread round the world, particularly through

his daughters. Again, it may be pointed out that the famous mare Wakeful in maternal family came from'Nightmare, a matron whose descendants are valued in New Zealand as brood mares, two of the number being owned in Southland in Cough and Thornton. In a recent issue of the Southland Times the fact was referred to that George Young, at one period a resident of Invercargill and well known as jockey to Gloaming in many of the geldings greatest races was still on deck and making his way as a trainer at Randwick, Sydney. The most important race to go down to the credit of one of his pupils was achieved on Jpne 12 when the five-year-old gelding Gold Pan won the Australian J.C. Winter Plate, £650 (Im. sfur.) at Randwick. Owned by Mr J. Campbell, Sydney, the winner is a well-bred performer who has made a rapid rise to fame. Until the last week in January, Gold Pan had not won a race. During the interim he has recorded three wins and two seconds in five starts. A well-known Sydney writer states that Young turned his charge out in perfect condition to score by a - head in a slashing finish for the Winter Plate. Judging by the fact that his most important success to date was accomplished over 13 furlongs, Gold Pan can stay and this is not surprising as his sire Pantheon (imp., and whose progeny include Avenger, Billy Boy, Feminist, Bristol and Olympus) is recognized as a sire of racehorses of stamina. When he won his best race Gold Pan started as third fancy in the ring and at an extended price.