ON AND OFF THE TRACK

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21280, 25 February 1939, Page 18

ON AND OFF THE TRACK

A Budget of News And Views FIXTURES Racing Feb. 23 —Gore R.C. Feb. 25—Wanganui J.C. Feb. 23—Waiapu R.C. Feb. 25, 27—Westland R.C. Feb. 25, 27—Te Aroha J.C. Trotting Feb. 25—Kaikoura T.C.. Feb. 25—Wairarapa T.C. March 4—lnvercargill T.C. March 4—Wellington T.C. March 11— Timaru T.C. There will be racing to-day at Gore, Hokitika, Te Aroha, Wanganui, and Waiapu, and trotting at Kaikoyra and Wairarapa. • « • • Nominations for handicap events at the Timaru Trotting Club’s autumn meeting (March 11) close at 9 pan. on Monday. • • • • As the Banks Peninsula Racing Club’s meeting will be held on Saturday, March 4, the Walmate Racing Club has decided to alter the closing date for nominations for its annual race meeting to Monday, March 6. • • • • The Futurity Stakes, to be run at Caulfield to-day, is described as being "at weight-fbr-age with penalties and allowances,’’ but the penalties and allowances take such a wide range that any semblance of weight-for-age is lost. Penalties may range as high as 201 b., and allowances as low as 101 b., with a special concession for horses foaled north of the Equator. One or two maiden horses from England won the Futurity with ridiculously low weights, but generally the star performers collect the rich stake in spite of their penalties.

How History is Made “ ‘You can have that mare if you pay her grazing fees.’ And thus Mr Bob Heron bought Entreaty, dam of Phar Lap. on behalf of Mr A. F. Roberts, for £l5 155." The foregoing is the introduction to an interview in a Melbourne sporting journal in which Mr Heron claims that he selected and bought Night Raid and Entreaty for Mr Roberts, and that he was the auctioneer who knocked Phar Lap down at 160gns. at the Trentham yearling sales.

The story continues that Mr Roberts had the stallion St. Petersburg, who was doing no good, and "asked Bob Heron if he could get hold of a Radium horse. Night Raid was the selection ... I am afraid that those of us who unshipped Night Raid on his arrival felt that they had been sold a pup. But he grew into a fine horse as soon as he was acclimatised . . . Meanwhile, Mr Heron was on the look-out for Winkle mares. He found two Timaru sportsmen were racing Entreaty, but she was proving an absolute failure. Time after time she ran last, so they turned her out, and when he came along they were glad to get rid of her for the grazing fees." Later, Australian readers were informed that Phar Lap was offered to a North Otago man for £25. but the shaggy-coated foal, running at the side of a big-boned chestnut mare made no appeal. Mr Heron admitted that he thought about as little of the colt as his friend, but now neither of them could look at a chestnut mare with a foal at foot without shuddering at the thought of what they missed. Then, “four years later, when Phar Lap was on his way to America, New Zealanders from both islands flocked to Auckland to see him, and were amazed that he was the same puny colt that had passed through the Trentham salering.”

Most of this will be news to South Canterbury racing folk. In the first place, Entreaty was not a big-boned chestnut, nor whs Phar Lap a puny foal. Entreaty was either black or dark brown, and was a level-made mare of average size, and it seems that Mr Heron never saw her. She did not run last time after time; she started only once, at Orari, and went amiss. Most people were under the impression that Night Raid was purchased from Mr A. P. Wade (Sydney), through an Australian salesman named Bright and the Washdyke trainer P. T. Hogan. Mr Roberts paid several times fifteen guineas for Entreaty, and there could hardly have been a score of fifteen guineas for grazing fees when Messrs Elworthy and Rhodes had plenty of paddocks in which to pasture the mare. Mr Heron was a smart salesman, but few people thought he sold Phar Lap. So far from people flocking to Auckland to see Phar Lap, the wonder horse was never within hundreds of miles of that city. The article from which the foregoing quotations are made very apt’y remarks, "So is racing history made.”