NIGGER MINSTREL’S PACE GREAT BUT UNLUCKY HORSE NEAR CHAMPION UNSOUND

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 20, 14 April 1927, Page 6

NIGGER MINSTREL’S PACE GREAT BUT UNLUCKY HORSE NEAR CHAMPION UNSOUND

When a sportsman has owned so many really good horses such as M. T. H. Lowry has had to carry his colours from time to time, he may feel somewhat diffident in regard to advancing an opinion as to what he considered was the very best of them. The majority of sporting folk will no doubt have their own opinion to which no one more than a racegoer is fully entitled.

Some will give the palm to Desert Gold, and no doubt her admirers will be in the majority. Others will side with the “Mighty Bobrikoff,” but perhaps they will both be out of it. “If not these two champions, then will you please be so good as to tell us?” they will ask. THE BLACK COLT It might be considered presumption on anybody’s part to attempt to name the best horse owned by the 11.8. sportsman, and the writer is not going to attempt to do it. An expression of opinion, however, is a liorse of a different colour, and furthermore is only one man’s view. If Bobrikoff and Desert Gold were the bright stars in their days, then Nigger Minstrel was a champion in his time. Here it might be considered opportune to recall a little story of a visiting trainer who brought a two-year-old to Ellerslie to run in the Great Northern Champagne Stakes of 1924, and he was a shrewd man (he is at present in Australia) and the colt he had was undoubtedly good. But he returned home with his charge a couple of days before the Easter meeting opened. He had seen Nigger Minstrel gallop. HE WENT HOME This visitor had tried his horse over five furlongs one morning, and he had been fully satisfied with the time recorded. He sent the youngster back to his stall and remained on the track to clock other two-year-olds to see what they were doing, and at the same time to get a line on his own youngster. Came out Nigger Minstrel. He went over exactly the same ground, and next morning the visitor and his horse were on the train homeward bound. The Nigger had gone a second and a-half fasten than his colt, and he at once realised that he was in the wrong place. How Nigger Minstrel beat the brilliant Motley in the Champagne Stakes quite a number of Auckland racegoers will remember well, and they will also recollect how he came to be narrowly headed in the Avondale All Aged Stakes by Glentruin, when the English mare was at thd top of her form.

GREAT DERBY EFFORT As a three-year-old Nigger Minstrel was taken across to Australia to con test the Australian Derby, and the re . suit of that rich classic shows what a great colt the black was. roic, A'igger Minstrel and Spearfelt was the order past the post, heads separating the trio. A few days be fore the race Nigger Minstrel had to be eased in his work, and it is freeiv acknowledged that this compulsorr let-up cost him the race. But there was no disgrace in beinjr beaten by such a good horse as Heroic for he subsequently proved himself a great three-year-old until he showed that he was possessed of a temperament. Spearfelt, too. later proved a champion in handicaps, for he has now won the Melbourne Cup and the Australian Cup. so that the New Zealand owner had the consolation that although his horse was beaten he knew it was by one that could be termed great. HIS LAST RACE Little was seen of Nigger Minstrel after his return from the other side for he proved difficult to train, the weakness being in the legs. However, he was got to the post at Wanganui IS months ago, and after contesting the open sprint the first day (he finished very fast just behind the placed horses) he came out two days later and ran .T dead-heat in the Eclipse Stakes with Gold Light, the son of All Black getting up to the mare right on the post after a meteoric dash at the finish. That race to be remembered. At the same meeting last September it was hoped that the Nigger would be on the scene once again to contest the Eclipse Stakes, but unfortunately it was not to be. Everything was going along nicely until about a fortnight before the fixture, but he went again, and this time it was announced that it was for good. So ended the all too brief turf career of Nigger Minstrel. He is now at the stud, present address, HuntervilU\ As a sire he should make a name for himself, for among thoroughbreds he is an aristocrat.