SPORTING BREVITIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5517, 18 March 1896, Page 3

SPORTING BREVITIES.

— '■ ♦ Havoc appears to have lost all. form this season. The Artist is now in charge of C. Woodley. Both Merganser and Goosander have been thrown of training. P. Butler, who has been laid up for some little time, is, now nearly well. Hova has now won the V.R.C. All-aged Stakes two years in succession. Wakawatea ran unsuccessfully right thi - ough his Victorian campaign. Challenger went wrong just before the Victoria Racing Club's Autumn Meeting. P. M'Grath has remained in Dunedin and is acting as assistant to S. J. Mercer. All the starters but one fell in the Second Steeplechase" run at Flemington on Saturday. There is this season a yearling halfsister by The Australian Peer to Gipsy Grand. ■'.: ' . , . The Hawke's. Bay Jockey Club's Autumn; Meeting will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday. Mr P. Campbell has determined not to send Magazine over to the West Coast this autumn. Folly won the double— Cup and Flying Handicap— at the South Auckland meeting •last week. . . A promising yearly colt by Sommeil from Prioress was killed in Victoria recently by snake-bite. Wallace is to be spelled for the remainder of the season. The son of Carbine well deserves a rest. The death is announced of Tartan, the four-year-old daughter of Nordenfeldt and Maid of Athol. The time for the Wanganui Cup, 3min 4£sec, is a New Zealand record for a mile and three-quarters. Ravenswing, who is now at the Kirkham stud, has a foal by Carbine which is stated to be rather weedy. Lady Zetland inigiit have won the Wanganui Cup if Cochrane had not eased her at a critical moment. Nebuchadnezzar, an elder full brother to Gipsy Grand, was so slow that he was ultimately sold for .£5. The Victoria Amateur Turf Club made a loss of .£250 over its autumn meeting. Rain fell on the second day. Leda was taken to Wanganui, but at the last moment it was decided that she should not start for the Wanganui Cup. Coombwood, a colt by Manton, won the Nursery Handicap at the Moorefield (New South Wales) Meeting on Feb. 22. Brooklet was very sore when she ran in the Wanganui Cup. The daughter of Torpedo has certainly earned a rest. Next year the V.A.T.C. Autumn Cup will probably be replaced by a weight-for-age race with penalties and allowances. St Paul was omitted from the acceptances for the Hawke's Bay .Stakes, owing to an oversight on the part of his owner. Since the Dunedin Autumn Meeting, Dilemma . has been . turned out. It is hardly likely that he will ever race again. Idolator was well supported for the Newmarket Handicap, but was not much fancied for the Australian Cup, which he won. Curassow, Mr Stead's two-year-old colt by Cuirassier from Albatross, is coming on nicely, but will not be raced this season. The Dunedin bookmakers are said to have lost J2IOOO by Strathbraan's victory in the Manawatu Racing Club Handicap. It seems doubtful. " Fabulist's running at Wanganui effectually dissipates the theory that the son of Fabulous is anything like as good as Gipsy Grand or Euroclydon. Lillie, a four-year-old half-sister to that good mare. Lottie, won the Maiden Plate and Railway Stakes at the South Auckland meeting on Friday and Saturday. \ . Some horses improve in a marvellously short time. Ngatuere ran something like a stone better horse at Wanganui than at the Manawatu Meeting a few days before. Spinnaker, in foal with Spindrift, and with a filly foal (Spinaway) at her side, was purchased by the Hon J. D. Ormond at the break up of the Sylvia Park stud for lVOgs. Dante was quite one of the heroes of the Wanganui meeting. He displayed very different form to that which characterised his running at the Egniont meeting. ' • The present owner of Flying Shot acquired the horse by an exchange for a pony valued at about £7. Flying Shot had never raced, but has now won about ,£6OO in stakes. It was known that Armilla did not display her true form at the Auckland Summer Meeting. This has now been proved by her successive defeats of St Paul at Wanganui. Wdodfdrd, by Newniinster from Woodnymph, who finished second in the last A.J.C. Metropolitan Handicap, was stolen recently. A mounted constable rode one hundred miles over mountainous country and recovered the colt. When Idolator won the Australian Cup he equalled Dreadnought's Australian record for two miles and a quarter, but did not approach Euroclydon's Australasian record for the distance. *. The English-bred horse Homespun Bst 61b, by Lowland Chief— Needle, won the Welter Handicap, of 100 soys, six furlongs,' on the second day of the Victoria Amateur Turf Club's Autumn Meeting. The handicaps for the Great Easter and Autumn Handicaps will be declared on March 19, and the general entry day for the Canterbury Jockey Club's Autumn Meeting, has been altered to March 24. Bloodshot, in charge of Derrett, left for Napier on Thxirsday to fulfil his engagements at the Hawke's Bay Jockey .Club's Autumn Meeting. Gipsy Grand and Belle Clair, from Dunedin, went north on Friday.