SPORTING. WANGANUI TROTTING CLUB.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXIV, Issue 12734, 1 April 1909, Page 7

SPORTING.

WANGANUI TROTTING CLUB.

THE MASTERTOX MEETING. (Per United Presß Association.) MASTER! ON, April 1. ' For the Masterton races the weather is cloudy and uncertain and the course is heavy. The attendance isTteederate. A number of bookmakers are present, but there are no publicans' booths. Results: Hack Hurdle Handicap.—Whatakura 1, Waimaria 2, Erl King 3. Won easily, ill started. Time, 3min 25sec. March Handicap (open), six furlongs.— Kelso 1, Waikaraka 2. Sunbonnet 3. All started. Time, 1.17. Maiden Hack.—Toanga 1, PiHkio'2, Te Utuatu 3. Scratched—Kimmerian, Leahora, Vinco, and Seraphic. Time, lmin 4 2-ssec.

NOMINATIONS CLOSE TO-NIGHT. Owners of trotters are given a final reminder that nominations for the Wanganui Trotting Club's race meeting, to be held on the 22nd and 24th inst., close to-night with Mr Selby Morton, secretary. Acceptances and general entries for the Patea Racing Club's Easter Monday meeting are due on Saturday next, with Mr. R. W. Hamerton, secretary. In connection with the Easter Meeting of the Feilding Jockey Club, owners are reminded that acceptances for the first day's events, and entries for the Maiden Scurry, close on Saturday next, with the secretary, Mr E. Goodbehere. Messrs W. R. Hall, A. A. Dangar, W. F. Buchanan, and S. Hordern, who have put their names down for .£50,000 towards a fund for providing England with at least one Dreadnought, are all well-known in the world of sport, and at some time or another raced horses, says the Sydney Daily Telegraph. Mr S. Hordern, though he does not now race horses, went largely into the sport for some seasons, and the hope is still entertained that he will "return to it as a liberal patron. Mr Hall is one of the best supporters of racing the State possesses, and Mr A. A. Danger raced a horse or two many years ago. Some of to-day's racing men may remember Gainsborough, by Yattendon from Atholine, who ran third to Nellie and The Baroness in the Maribyrnony Plate of 1878, and also occupied a similar place in A.J.C. Champagne Stakes. Gainsborough was sold as a yearling for 1000 gns, and though he was raced by the late Mr J. White, was really Mr A. A. Danger's property. About the same time —a year earlier, to be exact — Mr W. F. Buchanan raced a horse named Star at Randwick, Dubbo, and other places in the State. Bunnerong Handicap, at the January meeting of the Sydney Amateur Turf Club, waa one of the events Star figured in, and it was at that meeting that a gentleman, long since dead, received permission to work a totalizator on the course. The absolute fairness of the machine, and its ability to bet longer odds than the bookmaker, were virtues that the proprietor claimed for the tote, which had been well boomed before the day of racing. For the Bunnerong Handicap Star was so little fancied that as the field left the paddock there was but a single investment on him on the tote, and, noticing this, two admirers of Star—Mr T. S. Clibborn will hardly object to it being said that he was one of them—invested £1 each on that horse's chance when the field lined up for the start. Star did not win —he was not even placed—but he led into the straight, and at that stage looked like taking the race for Mr Buchanan. Curiosity prompted Mr Clibborn to see what mammoth dividend Star would have paid from the tote had he succeeded in disposing of the opposition, but, much to his surprise, instead of there being but three tickets on that horse, the machine registered 14. That incident, small though it was, practically sounded the death-knoll of the betting machine in those days.