AUSTRALIAN TURF ACTIVITIES

Southland Times, Issue 23991, 5 December 1939, Page 10

AUSTRALIAN TURF ACTIVITIES

SILVER COAT AT NEWCASTLE STIMULANTS FOR HORSES CONDEMNED

By

SIR MODRED

Imported Son-in-Law sires have been very successful in Australia during this season. . There will be racing at Warwick Farm (Sydney) on Thursday and SatUl? The crack handicap racer Maikai was bred at Mr P. Miller’s Kia Ora Stud (N.S.W.). In Victoria racing will be held at Ballarat, Hamilton and Epsom (Melbourne) this week. . Landlaw, who has been racing well of late in Victoria, is an imported English galloper. For the first three months of the Australian racing season The Buzzard (imp.) heads the winning sires list with £9374. , Ajax has reappeared on the tracks at Caulfield. He is being hacked about as a preliminary to an autumn racing preparation. When the winning sires returns for the first six months of the season are compiled Rivette’s progenitor, Ronsard, may top the score. . Since he came from behind to win the Cup Steeplechase at Williamstown Mr W. T. Hazlett’s Frenchy has been galloping well at Caulfield. High Caste has placed Bulandshar (N.Z.) fifth on the list of winning sires for the first three months of the Australian turf session. For the first quarter of the present season in. Australia three of the progeny of the Southland sire, Siegfried, won £2397 in stake money. Recent wins by Maikai have placed Pantheon (imp., and by Tracery) close to the top of the winning sires’ list for the Commonwealth. At Belmont Park, West Australia, last month Dainty Verse, by Iliad from Isa, by Absurd from a mare of Bomform line, won over seven furlongs. On its introduction to Victoria at the Williamstown Cup meeting the doubles totalizator was successful. . When Catalogue ran second ,to, Maikai in the Williamstown Cup he was a double-figures ring quote. Bred in the Dominion juvenile John Peel, by Foxbridge-Hyades, on November 18, won the Maiden Handicap at Randwick. The totalizator investments for the Williamstown Cup, won by Maikai last month, amounted to £9310/15/-. Maikai was favourite. . Third in the Williamstown Cup Fort Belvedere returned a totalizator quote of about a-quarter of a century for five shillings. Now one of Australia s leading Hat racing jockeys E. McMenamin was a jumping horseman in 1932, but then turned his attention to the gallopers. CONSISTENT, RECORD In seven starts the Sydney juvenile Binnia Hero, by Heroic, has had three wins, a second and two thirds. . It is anticipated that he will furnish into a useful performer and good stayer. In winning at his last start he ran away from the field and, riddeh out, covered. 10 furlongs in 2min 6sec. Australian turf officials are no respecters of persons and they get desirable results. For disobedience at the barrier in the Eclipse Stakes won by Maikai three well-known jockeys were fined £5 each. In another event later in the day two other equally well-known horsemen' were each fined the same amount for disobedience to the starter’s orders. At the Newcastle J.C. meeting on November 25 the Corinthian Cup, gentlemen riders (6fur.) was won by Silver Coat, the aged gelding carrying 11.10 to win by a neck in lmin 14|sec, a smart performance in a field of nine. Bred by the Timaru trainer, E. J. Ellis, Silver Coat is by Pink Coat from the Southland mare Silver Patch, by Quicksilver (son of Silvermark, a C.J.C. classic winner, and sire of a line which included many successful trotters in the home province). Owned by Mr F. Malcolm, of the Western District, Quicksilver was a weight-carrier and a champion performer at the hack meetings of the early days in Southland. In 1934 the chestnut gelding Silver Coat won the Dunedin J.C. McLean Stakes for his breeder. He was subsequently taken to Sydney and sold there by Ellis. He won across the flat and over battens after changing'hands and it would seem that somebody knew of his sprinting prowess when he was started at a remunerative quote to win over three-quarters of a mile at Newcastle in the hands of Mr L. Sharp. Silver Coat comes of a very tough maternal family and it is not surprising to find him carrying on to advantage. MANNA’S DEATH * News of the death in England of the 1925 Derby winner Manna, will create interest in Australia and New Zealand as he has sons at the stud in Australasia. His best-known representative in the Dominion is Man’s Pal, whose progeny have yet to brave the trials and dangers of the racecourse. Owned by Mr G. Kain, of Orari, Man’s Pal is admitted on all hands to be a strikingly handsome and commanding horse. The Gore-owned mare Set Sail recently produced a nice colt, her first male contribution to the Stud Book for many years past. In Australia Manna’s son Manitoba has a number of two and three-year-olds racing as his descendants. Last season several of his two-year-olds were returned as smart winners, while of late his juveniles Zonda, Spruce and others have garnered prize money to the credit of their English-bred sire. The Southland breeder-owner Mr W. T. Hazlett mated five of his young mares sent across to Victoria to race with Manitoba and with average luck he hopes to devote their issue to competing in and around Melbourne. Manitoba (imp.), by Manna, is from Berystede, by Son-in-Law from Beresina, by Swynford from Brig of Ayr, by Ayrshire from Santa Brigida, by St. Simon from Bridget. It is stated that the well-known performer Maikai is given three-quarters of a bottle of whisky on the morning

of a day in which he is to race. While this practice may be winked at in Melbourne it would not be permitted in Sydney, and rightly so. The Rules of Racing are definitely opposed to stimulants being administered to horses before racing, except in very special cases as judged by the stipendiary stewards of the day. Permission is seldom, if ever, granted to stimulate horses for their races and this is as it should be, although stewards might relax the conditions in cases where horses have met with severe weather conditions or accidents on their way to the track, but even then it would hardly be fair and even dangerous as a precedent to permit stimulation. It is announced that Maikai is to' be treated to a spell after which he will be taken in hand to prepare for autumn racing with the Sydney Cup as his special mission. If he should race at Randwick- under stimulant early administered, it is on the cards that Sydney’s paid stewards will smell his breath and act accordingly. There was more in a Hawkesbury J.C. race result published in The Southland Times last week than at first met the eye. It was announced from Sydney that Dinny O’Dowd had won the First Division of the Maiden Handicap and the Second Division of the Novice Handicap, an unusual afternoon’s feat on metropolitan courses there. Dinny O’Dowd is the son of an English horse in Denis Boy, who won the Caulfield Cup, Sydney Metropolitan Handicap, and V.R.C. Cantala Stakes, proving his claim to be a stayer of the best class. During the current season his progeny have been racing attractively. Denis Boy (imp.) was by Soldennis (by Tredennis, and winner of 24 races) froin Blink Girl, a stoutly-bred mare of Isinglass sire line. Four years of age, the double winner of last week, Dinny O’Dowd, is of leading maternal strains, as his dam, Magical, was by Magpie (imp., and sire of Windbag) from Mystic Light, by White Star (imp.) from Perplexity, by Multiform (one of the Dominion’s best horses) from Problem, by St. Hippo (winner of the New Zealand Cup and Auckland Cup of 1892) from Ellerslie, by Trenton from Sister to Lord Grenville, by First King from Lady Granville, by Chandos (imp.) from Lady Chester (imp., and dam of Australia’s noted sire of stayers in Chester, by Yattendon), by Stockwell (founder of a celebrated line of thoroughbreds that stands out up to the current year). Dinny O’Dowd may not furnish into a performer of the first water, but his double success suggests the stoutness of his famous back lines. The New South Wales horse Chester won the Melbourne Cup and Derby of 1877 for the Hon. J. White, a very successful breeder-owner, who included in his activities unsuccessful endeavours to breed horses to English time capable of accounting for the Epsom Derby. Three of his representatives sent to England were Kirkham, Mons Meg and Narallen. The former sired several winning jumpers of note in the Old Country and this was not surprising as his grandsire, Yattendon, claimed many staying ’chasers and hurdle racers in Australia. The mare Mons Meg sent to England was by Martini Henry, by Musket, and winner of the V.R.C. Derby and Melbourne Cup.