On and Off the Track

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21090, 16 July 1938, Page 5

On and Off the Track

I ■ BUDGE'I Oh NEWS AND VIEW.' FI XI URES Racing: July 16-Hawkes Bay Hunt Club July 16—Waimate Hunt Club July 23 -Rangitikei Hunt Club | July 23 —South Canterbury Hunt Club I July 23 -Matamata RC July 28. 30 - Poverty Bav Turf Club July 30-Christchurch Hunt Club. fulv 30— Taranaki J C August 6- Poverty Bay Hunt Club. August 9, 11, 13 Canterbury J.C. Trotting August 6. 10. 12—New Zealand Metropolitan T.C. August 27-Auckland T.C. September 3—New Brighton T.C. First race at Waimate at 12 o'clock. El Caballo will be ridden in the gentlemen riders’ race at the Soul! Canterbury meeting by Mr J. O'Malley of South Hillend. The three Westenra brothers wil have mounts in th • Amateur Cup Steeplechase at Waimate. R. D. will be on Golden Glow and G. D. on Tomcat, while W. D. will handle Harkaway The disappointing Love Parade is to be sent over this month to Melbourne, where he is to join J. Fryers team at Caulfield. Fryer also trains Elanage. who races in the same colours as Love Parade, those of Mr Max Steinberg. Clarion Call has finished second in the Grand National Hurdles two years running with 10.9 and 10.12. This year he has been given 11.3. but appearances point to the steeplechase being his mission. Since Record Reign won with 12.12

in 1900. only one horse 'Paisano 12.1 > has succeeded in the Grand National Hurdles with 12.0 or more. During the last ten years only two —Nukumai 11.11 and Jolly Beggar 11.4 -have won with more than 11.0. This makes Jolly Beggar’s task look formidable with 12.1 this year. In jumpers’ races in Germany, a totalisator backer is able to insure against his horse falling. By pelmeni of an additional 10 per cent., or the German equivalent of sixpence on each 5/- ticket, he buys the right to receive his 5'- back in the event of the horse coming to grief. Another German innovation is the payment of four place dividends when a field exceeds twelve. R. S. Bagby's proposed trip to Sydney on July 21 is doubtful at the moment. The three rising two-year-olds. High Caste, Wapaugh and Konnetta. who. in company with Stretto, were to comprise the team, are not as forward as their trainer would like them to be, their preparations having been interrupted by colds. Stretto, however, has done very well and a decision will be made in the next day or two whether she will make the trip alone. Keith Voitre lost about twelve months riding by his smash, but he is busy in endeavours to make up time. On a recent Wednesday he landed a winner in Melbourne, then flew to Brisbane to ride at Doomben on Saturday. Taking the air again he was back to ride another winner at Caulfield on Monday, two at. Moonee Valley on Wednesday, and four at Pakenham on Thursday. Voitre now feels no effects of his serious leg injury, and is riding with all his former confidence. A fortnight before the Derby, Bois Roussel was backed in London’s principal sporting club to win £9OOO. with the result that his price shortened from 50 to 1 to twenties. Assuming that the average was 30 to 1. it appears that an investment of £3OO was responsible for this big drop in the odds, and that the betting bourse in England is as sensitive as it is in Australia, where one bookmaker will reduce his quotation by half because another has laid a bit about a horse. A Victorian who had been racing horses in a jacket composed of a white skull and crossbones on a black jacket was refused the right to use this symbol on his horse Raytheon at Pakenham. Three weeks earlier at Narnargoon those colours, seen for the first time by Melbourne racegoers, caused a mild stir and not a little superstition. especially among jockeys. A swastika jacket also is causing comment. In Victoria registration of colours is not compulsory, and stewards have the option of barring the use of jackets that have not been passed by the V.R.C. The Hawke’s Bay Hunt meeting (single pool) will be held at Hastings to-day. The following horses are likely to be fancied:— Otane Steeplechase—Lovelilt, Rapa, Agog. | Maiden Stakes Laughing Song. Hastings West. Hunt Cup—Power Chief, Skerryvorc. Riverslea Hack—Hamarin, Hastings West. Soutra Flat Handicap Mesurina. Passion Fruit. Waitangi Handicap Proclamation. Red Witch. Tinokino Handicap—Slippery, First Chapter. The daily double, which pays some huge dividends on English courses, is not the only totalisator attraction that | is denied New Zealanders. The pro- I gressive double is growing in popular favour. This is worked on any two big races of the season, such as the Csarewitch and the Cambridgeshire. Tickets are sold at 2/6 after the appearance of nominations, at 5/- after weights are declared, and at 10/- after acceptances are received. All the money goes into one pool, and all tickets have the same I valu on distribution. Thus a backer who selects the winning double before the weights are out receives four times the odds taken by one who picks the winners after acceptance day. It would be interesting to see this tried in NewZealand on the Grand National and Winter Cup, or on the New Zealand Cup and Stewards.

[ It is a long time since so many horses were given 11.0 or more in a Grand National as is the case this year. Horses who have been handicapped above 11.0 since 1930 have i been:— 1930—Aurora Borealis 11.1 (next weight, Mangani, 10.12). j 1931—Wiltshire, 11.5 (next weight, Claremore, 10.9). 1932 Billy Boy. 11.13 (next weight, Wiltshire. 10.13). I 1933—8i11y Boy, 12.5; Makeup, 12.1, Callamart, 12.1; Luna Lux 11.2. : 1934--Billy Boy. 11.13 (next weight, Makeup, 10.13). j 1935 —Valpeen, 11.13; Tudor. 11.8; Billy Boy. 11.5; Riotous. 11.8. i 1936—Valpeen. 12.2; Billy Boy. 11.5. | 1937—Tudor. 11.11 next weight. Royal Limo nd, 11.0). 1933 Jolly Beggar, 11.3: Clarion Call. 11.1: Nocturnus, 11.0; Bonnie Rollox. 11.0; Erination, 11.0. Pacers and Trotters The following horses have been entered for the National Challenge Stakes to bo run at Addington next month:— j Pacers —Gold Dredge. Morello. Rocks I Ahead. Red Shadow. King’s Warrior. I Evicus. Fo Ginger Jack. Renown’s i Best. Lucky Jack. War Buoy. Carver Doone, Plutus. Village Guy. Graham | Direct. | Trotters Waikato Prir.ce. First I Wrack, Discord. Sea Gift. Amonos, 1 : Wahnooka. .Aristotle. Peggotty. I Notable absentees from the pacers’ | ; list are Indianapolis. Pot Luck, and , I Parisienne. though this was expected in the case of Indianapolis. TrampI fast, Norma. Bingen and Todd Lonzia, I who were discussed as probable competitors from the 72 yards mark, are lout of training, and there was never any chance of them appearing. Lucky Jack on recent form overshadows the others in the pacers’ division. Sea Gift occupies the same position among the trotters, but even she will probably prove unequal to defeating the hoppled brigade. Old Associations The Waimate Hunt’s race meeting is not one of the highlights of the racing season, but it provides an enjoyable outing for local people and for sportsmen of neighbouring districts, and it serves to keep alive associations with the earliest days of cross-country racing. There was a Steeplechase Club in Waimate in the early seventies, a meeting being hold by it at Willowbridge a year prior to the first Grand National there in 1875, and the present Waimate Racing Club was formed as the result of an amalgamation between a steeplechase club and a hack racing club. The predecessor of the Hunt Club was the Waimate Harriers. No reliable data is available concerning the foundation of this body, but it is on record that it was associated with the South Canterbury Hunt in the management of the first point-to-point meeting, which was held on the Levels Plain exactly fifty years ago. J. C. Thierens’s Guy was the winner of the heavyweight event, and R. H. Rhodes’s Ivanhoe finished second in the lightweight division. Luck of the Game

A fantastic story could be written round the win of Dakwood in the V.R.C. Grand National Hurdles a week or two ago. Messrs Hugh and Michael Burke bought him as a yearling for 27igns, and until he was five the horse grazed with the cows on his owners’ farm. Trained for hurdle racing. Dakwood fell so heavily in one of his first outings that it was thought his racing days were ended. After a long rest he finished second in the Grand National Hurdles last year, but at Flemington on Cup Day he fell over another horse, and went back to the cow paddock with a dislocated neck. By accident he jarred the bones into line, and went into training again. Ten days before the G.N. Hurdles he was once more brought down by another runner and was badly shaken. Dakwood was supposed to be useless on a heavy track, and when it rained on the morning of Hurdles day one of his owners did not wish to start him, and the other did not think it worth while going to the races. Out of consideration for the jockey, F. Douglas, who ' ad refused other rides, it was decided at the last minute to let Dakwood run, and the brothers received a £l5OO stake. The luck did not end there. When Giantkiller looked like making a race of it. Hughie Bourke “saved” a tenner with Giantkiller's owner. As the horses ran to the last hurdl° he wanted to double it, but the Giantkiller man declined. Yet there are punters who regard a tip from an owner as a gift from the i gods.