CAP and JACKET

Observer, Volume XVI, Issue 965, 26 June 1897, Page 15

CAP and JACKET

RACING^ FI&TUBEB. July U & 17— Wellington R.C. Winter. :

NEW ZEALAND CUP BETTING,

Thib year's New Zealand Cap promises to be a bigger betting race than any of its pre•deeesabra. The handicap is not yet out. This will not appear till July. Bat Mr Henry is so fair and impartial an adjuster of weights that all have perfect faith in him. This is very evident, if from no other reason than the very large volume of business which is already being done over the big event of November next. Fancy, there are still over four months to ran before the barrier will rise for the Cup race, and yet not one, nor two, bat some ten or a dozen horses have already been ba eked, several of them extensively. B&ystar was One of the first to receive support. I don't know -i or what amount he has been befriended, bat I know of one line of a thousand The .£SO or £60 outlay which this means argueß at once stable favour. Euroclydon. whom no one expects to get in lightly, is fancied as strongly as anything could be by the turfites of. his training district, and is being backed accordingly. So that Victorians who are expecting their own big Gap to increase in interest through the advent of the New Zealand crack .will probably be diaap pointed. Defiant is another which has been backed. Most probable Cap winner of performed three-year-olds on formation and breeding, it is reasonable the Hawke's Bay representative should be fancied Skirmisher, who had a strong following when younger, did more to break than make his backers. But recently a slight improvement in form has been sufficient to cause his friends to think there is still a chance of hi& fulfilling the promise of his two and three-year- old career. Hence Skirmisher is not so forlorn a quantity in the betting market as might be supposed. What; cannot be said to be a Btable move, bat which all the same comes from very close to head-quarters, is the rather vague Bupport of St. Cyr. St. Cyr was the pick in looks, as he was in breeding, of the youngsters of his year at Wellington Park. I have not seen him since, but all reports Bay how fine a colt he has grown into. He iB a non-perfomer, an inmate of Yaldburst, the place of exit of such as Gold Medallist, Multiform, and - multifarious other good ones, owned by the lucky and astute Mr. 3. G. Stead, who may have even other intentions for this handsome colt than New Zealand Cup honours. On that point I have nothing to say, but I know only that a few of our more wideawake turfites have not been frightened to dribble a little on St. Cyr. Of Mr Stead's other representative, rumour has not yet spoken. Another - Southern horse I wished to mention is Telemeter. His performance at Dunedin is too recent for readers to have forgotten it. It may not be taken that any of the performances achieved by Telemeter axe good enough to make one hold a strong fancy for him as likely to shape later as a New Zealand Cup winner. But I myself think that the Artillery horse is just the Bort of animal, in the absence of good three-year-olds and brilliant performers, to achieve such distinction. But now is not the time to talk of winners. I wished simply to add Telemeter's name as one of the, other probables which have beeu befriended by the weight of £ t>. d. Oar Waikato turf-supporter and good sportsman, Mr D. McKmnon, owns two of the nominations for the big race, viz., Picklock and Oma. Curiously enough, both these have had their names written for fairly substantial Bums by local pencillers. Their owner might posaibly take a little about each at long prices to finance with. I have no definite information on that head. £1000 to a tenner was taken in one hand about Oma, and this is ju6t the sort of wager Oma's owner likes to get. This time last year Aucklanders were very keen en Fabulist : But this year his name is scarcely mentioned. In very early betting I believe a few abnormally long prices' were laid, and if Fabulist's spring form should demonstrate a return to the brilliancy of his three-year-old efforts, the layers will feel that they had better have waited. , -

Perhaps the horse more strongly sap ported than any other is Waiukn. He has been backed in all centres, and if he does welHhere is no doabt that his backers will

have good hedging^ moneys This4s, -After all, the seoretof bo muckearly speculation, and certainly aomeinen come oat well that way,year by year. I'm afraid I have said, more than I first intended on the subject above. I have endeavoured not to encroach in any way on the privileges of a writer writing previous to the appearance of handicaps, .and' confine myself simply to information in regard to various horses sensitive io all movements of the betting market.