FROM TRACK AND STABLE

Taranaki Daily News, 13 September 1934, Page 10

FROM TRACK AND STABLE

HORSES IN COMING EVENTS CARBINE’S GREATEST SON. L. J. ELLIS RIDING CURRIE TEAM. (By “Hurry On.”) The horsenian L. J. Ellis will be seen in action at Wanganui, where he will ride Mr. G. M. Currie's team. His mounts to-day will include Spiral, Rust, Burnish, Pomp and Canopy. He will ride Burnish in the Guineas on Saturday. Trained Privately. Windscreen, who showed some promise last season, will make her reappearance at Wanganui to-day, when she will contest the Seafield Handicap. She has been trained privately by her owner at Inglewood during the last few months. Windscreen is a three-year-old filly by Potoa from Crubeen, thus being a halfsister to that good galloper Cottesmore. In Strong Demand. Blandford yearlings are worth money in England. At the Newmarket sales on July 18 a colt by him from Raticule realised 3500 guineas. Raticule is by Sunstar, but on her maternal side she is not related to anything of particular note. The highest price for any other of the 81 yearlings sold on the same date was 760 guineas for a colt by Cyclonic.

Opposition to Bracketing. Many arguments are being advanced to promote the bracketing of an owner’s runners in all races for purposes of wagering on the totalisator, writes the English critic “Augur.” I have yet to hear or read of a single sound reason in favour of the proposal., Even if it be thought advisable to group an owner’s runners on the machine, why not, in equity, with the bookmakers also? At best, such a measure must be regarded as akin to an endeavour to save backers from themselves, and the suggestion that it should be adopted in England, as I understand it is in other parts of the world, is a gross reflection on their intelligence.. The backer pays his money and takes his choice, and, having done so, should reap a reward commensurate with his judgment, and certainly not find himself winning instead of losing by reason of some outside governing influence. The big attraction of wagering on the totalisator is to obtain the maximum odds about a successful outsider. Those who fancied the Aga Khan’s colt Bahram, on looks and breeding, for the Produce Stakes at Sandown Park (last July) would have been ill repaid with a dividend of less than 2 to! 1, which would probably have been the rate had he been coupled with Theft. I am therefore emphatically of the opinion that no change should be made in the rules of betting, with totalisator or bookmaker, on these lines. “Horse and a Half.” Spearmint, winner of the Derby at Epsom and the Grand Prix de Parks in 1906, was unquestionably the greatest horse sired by Carbine in England. He stood out both as a racehorse and a sire as Wallace, the greatest Australian son of Carbine, ‘ did in his native land. In a recent issue of London Sporting Life Warren Harding recalled that Grand Prix win of Spearmint and said: “Bernard Dillon, who rode Spearmint, had ‘sensed’ overnight that the trouble might not come from the French Derby winner Maintenon so much as from the toopressing attentions of the Franco-Ameri-can jockeys. This, he thought, might be the case, especially over that section of the Longchamp track, on the far side, which is hidden from view from the stands. Accordingly he made haste fron) the start, got the rails, and from there dared the others to do their best or their worst. He engaged such ,as tackled him in a series of sprints. Maintenon, the fleetest horse in his own domain, was ‘done to a cinder’ some way before the finish, so that two considered inferiors, Brisecoeur and Storm, eventually beat him. Many years after I was staying at Poissy with trainer Duke, who was in charge of the Vanderbilt stable, and that particular Grand Prix race cropped up in conversation. I remember Duke’s tribute to the winner’s performance. ‘Spearmint,’ he declared, ‘was a horse and a-half.’ ”

Racing Sermon. “They that run in the race run all, but one receiveth the prize.” This saying of St. Paul was quoted by the Rev. Henry B. Young, rector of Newmarket, In a sermon upholding his attitude towards racing (says an English paper apropos of the comment. on the Gaming Act). In the time of St. Paul (he said) racing was in full swing. Every town of any considerable size had its racecourse. Rome had eight racecourses or circuses, as they were called—and chariot races, horse races and foot faces were important features in social life. Nowhere did they find our Lord or His Apostles saying “Down with racing.” The old Commandment touching this racing question told us: “There is nothing from without a man that, going with him,' can defile him.” If a man went racing and was dishonest, and spent in betting the money that belonged to his wife and children, they said to him in Newmarket: “Off the course.” But these were the faults of the man himself, not of the place. The racecourse and the “pub” were not the only places where men could go and do wrong instead of right. “To the pure all things are pure, but to the defiled and the unbeliever is nothing pure.” The people he was out to fight were on just the opposite tack to this. “Close the pubs,” they say, “stop racing, shut up the theatres, and the golden age shall come, and we shall all be good.” They tried it once, in the days of Cromwell. What happened? Half the nation turned into sneaking hypocrites, and the other half waited sullenly, wrathfully, for the day of vengeance. It came. What was it like? The filthiest, wickedest chapter in England’s history had to be written. The story of the years that followed Cromwell’s regime was a story of infamy and shameless crime. "Back to the old religion,” he said. “Hold fast the faith once delivered to ‘he saints.” NIGHTLY THROWS OFF LAMENESS. NEW ZEALANDER’S GOOD GALLOP. By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Sydney, Sept. 12. Nightly recorded a good gallop at Victoria Park and appears completely to have thrown off his lameness.