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New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IV, Issue 204, 21 June 1894, Page 4

Then we come to the protest against Silent Friend, the winner of the Woodville Handicap. The protest against Mr Buick’s horse was based on the fact that the owner did not possess a trainer’s license. Mr Buick contended that registration as a trainer was unnecessary in his case, and we consider he was right in his contention. To say that a man who elects to train his own horse must obtain a trainer’s license is absurd, and here again the Rules of Racing are at fault, for they contain no regulation which can be said to settle the question one way or the other. Clubs are left to exercise their own discretion as to what is the correct course to pursue —a most unsatisfactory state of things, for it opens the way for endless annoyances and waste of time in deciding protests. Then there is the lonic case, which cropped up at the Taranaki Boxing Day meeting. lonic was being given a fast preliminary gallop when he slipped on some tan opposite the saddling paddock gate, and in falling struck his shoulder against a post. An examination showed that the horse’s shoulder was dislocated, and he was consequently unable to start. There was £174 invested on him in the totalisator when the accident happened, and the investors thought they should have had their money refunded as their horse never saw the fall of the flag. But the authorities of the club thought otherwise and decided, jafter consideration of the

case, that the money should be retained. Under the rules of racing the stewards undoubtedly had the power to act as they did, but while their decision may have been warranted by the regulations under which racing is carried on we certainly think that on the equity of the case the money should have been returned. The public back a horse on the understanding that the animal is to have a start, and although under the rules a horse is held to be a starter from the time his rider leaves the clerk of the scales, he cannot be considered one from an investors standpoint until the starter drops the flag.