SPORTING

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 26, 25 July 1911, Page 7

SPORTING

DERBY DAY. The Times, in Its Teport of Derby Day this year, when the King was present, wrote: "It has been noticed by a keen and constant observer of races and racegoers that the old personae dramatis of Derby Day are no longer to be se?n. Some of them, no doubt, have vanished into the birdless grove. But others have taken refuge in the cool uncrowded night from the hordes of motors, which threaten to make the horse an,anachronism on the day routes to Epsom. The coster with his muchenduring little 'fuzzock' was there at any rate in the morning dusk; so heavily laden was his cart that it seemed wonderful the weight of the passengers did' not lift him into the sky. Among the wayfarers were a few visitors from the oversea dominions; Australian shearers and Canadian cattlemen taking a cheap holiday to see the wonders of their Motherland. They at least did not forgef to praise tlic loveliness of the English countryside, all one great garden to their enraptured eyes. Later on in the day when they saw the vastness of the crowd they were amazed and not ashamed to utter their amazement. But. none of them achieved the amusing 'mot juste'' such as that in which a Westerner, who had never been east of Winipeg, expressed his astonishment at the concourse in Minoru's year. He lay .baek in his" seat and gasped out—-'Wa-al, I'm hog-swaggled'—a memorable and mysterious saying." '

A NEW ZEALANDER'S IMPRESSIONS Among: the New Zealanders—probably a goodly ntimbcr—'who saw the race for the Derby at Epsom was Mr. Alfred Ividd, who'was formerly Mayor of Auckland. Mr. and Mrs. Kidd arrived in l Loudon at the end of May after a leisurely trip, during which they visited Cairo and the Pyramids, Naples, Rome, Venice, Monte Carlo. Nice and Paris. Mr. Ividd. considered himself very, fortunate in reaching London just in time to sec the great race and, as he whispered to the London correspondent of the Lytteltori Times, to back the winner, Sunstar. " The crowd at Epsom impressed Mr. Kidd as the most wonderful sight he had seen, but he was not able to praise he observed. "While the' racing 'was good," he stated in the course of an interview, "the conveniences and surHSundings of the course were not at all 'tefat I expected after Ellerslie and FlffiJStigton. This is accounted for probably "by the fact that there is no charge 'jfe'-go on the course. For such places as Tattenham Corner seemed to me very \Jangerous, especially with the large ran in the Derby." The starting'jsppeared to him to be not so good as it is in New Zealand, but he conceded cheerfully that the events were kept "fairly up to time." The Derby was a quarter of an hour late, but with a large field containing one or two fractious horses delays were inevitable. Mr. Kidd was interested quite as keenly in the crowd of spectators as he was in j the riding. "The crowd seemed to be immensely enthusiastic," lie said, "especially at the arrival of the King and Queen, arid the scene at the finish of the Derby : was a spectacle which, once 1 seen, was never to be forgotten." The New Zealander believes that his own country leads the way in many respects. "I have travelled largely over the Continent," he said, "and 1 still hold that j there are within our own dominion better sights and scenes than any I have seen in my travels." He feels that only a more rapid service between New Zealand and Europe is required to make the Dominion a peerless resort for tourists.