VESUVIUS FANCIED.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 189, 11 August 1931, Page 12

VESUVIUS FANCIED.

King George Handicap is Big Race To-morrow. (By OBSERVER.) Pluto may try again to-morrow to win the big’ race all the way. There is a chanoe that he will be harder to catch than on the first day. The winner should come from the 12yds mark. The first selection is Vesuvius, a horse which has been doing great work at Addington recently. As he won at Canterbury Pari in 4min 20 l-ssec he has the necessary credentials as far as performance goes. , A repetition of Glenrossie’s first day’s form will make him hard to beat, and Dundas Boy and Mountain Dell are the ones expected to improve on the first day’s performances. Both were close up in the August Handicap. If Erin’s Fortune and Lindbergh get to work with any promptness the form may be thoroughly upset. Peterwah is an interesting acceptor and his performance will be watched with great interest. Neither Harold Thorpe, Imprint nor Logan Chief, on 24yds, should beat the best of those on 12yds, but Free Adyice, on 36yds, and Roi l’Or (48yds) will have to be watched as they represent good class. They should beat Jewel' Pointer, though the Auckland horse worked well after Saturday’s race. He improves greatly with hard racing. The final summing up is in favour of Vesuvius. Tomkinson’s Erin’s For-tune-Peterwah-Free Advice bracket should be the second choice, with chances for Glenrossie and Dundas Boy on the first day’s running.

FIRST APPEARANCE. A horse booked to make his first appearance at Addington to-morrow is Impromptu, a five-year-old gilding by Pedro Pronto from PVitrova. Last season he had a run of six placings—including five wins—on end. At his second start after completing this sequence, he ran second at Waikato to Jurfa Nordica, going 4.35 from a 4.41 mark. In this race it was suggested that the horse’s performance was much better than his driver’s. Royal Comrade, Cranleigh and Final M’Kinney got into a mix up. The wheels of the sulkies became locked, and the three horses were unable to proceed. The starting point for mile races at Addington is not a good one, being on a bend, and, with a large field and seven horses on the limit, the incident was not surprising. :*: :Jc sfc sjt The Advance Handicap, an event for four-year-olds, which was decided on the first day’s programme at Addington, preduced a close finish, but it was not a particularly good contest. There were nine starters, all going off the limit with the exception of Priceless, who was on 12yds. The back marker made a very quick beginning and was early in a capital position. Priceless did not look as though he would be beaten in the first part of the race and even over the last furlong G. M’Kendry, who drove the Great Audubon pacer, seemed very confident. Bracken, however came in the last fifty yards and Priceless won by no more than a neck. The good beginning made by the winner helped considerably at the end of the contest. Checkers raced prominently for nearly a mile and then fell back and the Worthy Bond pacer has not come on as much as was expected. Aristotle was expected to show a lot of improvement on his earlier efforts but he did not put much dash into his work in the first part of the race and eventually finished up some distance back in fourth place. The New Brighton trained pacer looks as though he requires some racing. Golden Harvest will probably do better over a longer journey, but Goldworthy did not muster up much speed at any stage of the contest. Great Chenault is probably not as good at present as he was in the middle of last season, but he is a promising youngster, who can go two miles. Ilerod went a good race, being beaten by a narrow margin for second place, but Location, like Goldworthy, did not perform up to expectations. It was a fast run mile and a quarter, as Priceless was handicapped at 2min 55sec and won in 2min 47see. _ '