SELLING RACES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5839, 5 April 1897, Page 2

SELLING RACES.

. f" Canterbury Times."] Some years ago the Australian Jockey i Club discontinued the insertion of selling , races into the programmes for its meet- ! ings, and now the Sydney sporbing papers • are urging that the club shall insist that , all clubs racing under its jurisdiction shall i do the same. The Victoria Racing Club > has not gone quite so far as tho Australian Jockey Club, but if we remember right it has only one selling race on all its programmes, and this is for two-year-olds. . The selling races run on the suburban courses of Victoria and New South Wales . have- for many years been a dis- ! grace to racing. They are productive of iuoße jobbery and rascality than all the other races put together. Still the presiding clubs of the two colonies have not considered it necessary to put a stop to them. With their own cases it is different, however. They have, doubtless, long ago rrived at the conclusion that selling races, besides not being conducive to healthy sport, are degrading to clubs of their standing. This is indubitably coclect, and it is quite time the authorities of the Canterbury Jockey Club arrived at a similiar opinion. The Canterbury Jockey Club is not in want of the few pounds it derives from selliug race's. The events themselves are, to all intents and purposes, useless for the purpose for which they are intended. If sound horses win them they are generally repurchased by their owners, and if unsound horses win them they are so broken down as to be utterly worthless for racing or any other purposes, and usually fail to elicit a bid. Then, again, it should bs beneath the dignity of the principal club in New Zealand to place such events on its programmes. For instance, how incongruous it is to see a field of "leather-flappers" competing for the Shorts of 30 soys an hour or two after the New Zealand Cup and Welcome Stakes have been decided, and the same animals, probably, starting for the Auction Handicap of 50 soys just after the, decision of the Derby and the Metropolitan Handicap. Again, at Easter, almost directly after we have seen the Champagne Stakes and the Great Easter Handicap run wo shall descend to the Ginicraelc Race, of 50 soys, "while half an hour alter the decision of the Fifth Challenge Stakes comes the Addington Plate, of 75 soys. Considering the prosperous condition of its finances the Canterbury Jockey Club should have no i*ace on its programme of a smaller value than 100 soys, and these so-called selling \'aces should be expunged immediately.