BOSWELL ON THE TRACKS

Southland Times, Issue 24003, 19 December 1939, Page 10

BOSWELL ON THE TRACKS

Dark Flight’s Record This Season SOVEREIGN LADY HAS DONE WELL Acceptances for the Wyndham Racing Club’s meeting close at 5 p.m. op Friday. Amiss Birthday Boy has gone amiss and has been withdrawn from his holiday engagements. Dark Flight From seven starts this season Dark Flight has won four, and been once placed for £9OO in stakes. Boswell Although Boswell has yet to win a mile and a-quarter race in open company, he won the Wairio Cup over this journey as a hack. Well Represented In Boswell, Doubleack, Spanish Lad and Wild Career, the Varcoe horse Balboa has some strong representatives to carry his banner during the holidays. High Standard Sovereign Lady’s track work has been of a high standard and she promises to be one of the favourites for the Otago Handicap at Wingatui. Holiday Engagements Wild Career has been extensively nominated during the holiday meetings. He is to race at Wingatui and has been entered for the Wyndham-Invercargill circuit as well as the WaikouaitiOamaru circuit. Beaupartir Beaupartir was not an- acceptor for the Auckland Cup as he is being reserved for the King’s Plate and the Clifford Plate, while it is also intended to start him in the Wellington Cup next month. Others Preferred Peony Rose is no doubt well handicapped in the Otago Handicap but this does not mean that she is unbeatable. While she reads well on paper several others will be preferred on the day. Sluggish Worker Boswell is one of the most sluggish track workers at headquarters. In a trial he does not exert himself and does not do any better than he has to, but on race day he is a horse of another colour. Manawatu Cup Rider Centrepoise will be ridden by P. Atkins in the Manawatu Cup. He has gone on the'right way since his success in the C.J.C. Metropolitan Handicap. ; f Taurangi Taurangi is a notable absentee from Christmas racing, but she will probably reappear at Marton at the New Year. She was sore prior to and after her win in the Waikato Cup. Beaulivre’s Sale

It is stated by a Sydney paper that, after the death of Mr W. Higgins, the former jockey, Ji E. Pike (now training at Randwick) attempted to buy Beaulivre on behalf of a patron. Pike offered 2600 guineas and could have gone to 3000 guineas, but, so it is alleged, one of the trustees refused to bargain, expecting that the colt would bring an “immense price” at auction. Beaulivre brought 2900 guineas, and for his lucky buyer has won ten races in succession. Not Two-Milers The Limonds have not shown themselves real two-milers, though they have included such fine middle-dis-tancer horses as Limerick, Commendation, Ammon Ra, Veilmond, Agrion, Honour, Lady Pam, Theo, Waikare, Limarch and others, none of whom ever won at two miles. Birthday Boy is one who might go the longest distance. Birthday Boy is very stoutly bred on his distaff side, being out of the Lucullus mare Queen March, the dam of Limarch, King March and Gay Marigold and King March was generally conceded at the time to have been unlucky not to have won the Auckland Cup, in which he finished second to Gold Trail. Birthday Boy this season has won at 11 furlongs in the King George Handicap at Avondale, and was beaten by a neck by Royevrus in the Mitchelson Cup, one mile and a-half. Racing in England There would be' a wartime Grand National at Aintree, said the regional commissioner for the North-Western Region (Sir Warren Fisher), speaking at a dinner in Manchester early this month. “I have had trouble with the gloomy authorities in London,” he said, “about getting some horse racing. They said that they would not allow trains to run and any of the courses to open. They have already opened Manchester and Haydock, and we are going to have a Grand National at Aintree.” Nineteen yearlings owned by the Aga Khan, who is selling his horses, brought 38,230 guineas at Newmarket. The top price was 4000 guineas for Selim Hassan, a bay colt by Hyperion (the Derby winner in .1933) out of Blandford’s halfsister, Blanche. The buyer was W. -U. Goodbody, who owns several steeplechasers and hurdlers. Great Northern Derby Beaulivre, with ten straight victories to his credit, will meet his strongest opposition this season over a distance in the Great Northern Derby at Ellerslie during the holidays. Though he has defeated at some time or other during the present season most of the horses he will meet, improvements can be looked’for in some, while Beau Vite is a newcomer around whom interest will centre. Not that there seems much likelihood of Beaulivre being defeated unless he has slipped back since last raced at Riccarton. The New Zealand Derby was run at a slow pace in the early stages, and though Beaulivre came home over the last half-mile in fast time, the race could hardly be described as a test of stamina. Rather, it was more a duel of speed and, as he had proved in the Stewards’ Handicap, Beaulivre was incomparable. With the Stewards’ Handicap and Derby, an unusual double, Beaulivre finished the meeting, being allowed to drop out of the Canterbury Cup. It was a pity, as in recording 2min 31sec for the mile and a-half in the Canterbury Cup, Royal Chief clipped 9sec off the Derby time, and finished in such fine style that Beaulivre would probably have been thoroughly tested.