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New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IV, Issue 204, 21 June 1894, Page 5

The Witness writer “ Mazeppa,” after reprinting the Review’s remarks re Mr Samuel’s motion respecting paying out on second horses as well as firsts, answers our query, “ Would it be fair to pay out on a second horse who was beaten hopelessly by half-a-dozen lengths or so ?” as follows : — “ Decidedly not, I should answer. Nor do I see how it would be possible to recognise in any form the principle of giving part of the dividend to a defeated horse. Would it be proper to make it a rule that a horse beaten by just enough to swear by, say by less than a length, should receive consideration in this manner. That would never do. Races are seen at nearly every meeting where a winner gets home by only a neck or thereabouts, but with any amount to spare. The second horse is as badly beaten as if he were distanced. Instances of this sort are so common that if it were seriously proposed to compensate for ‘ dashed hard luck’ by giving the second horse a slice of the dividend, some other plan of reckoning up the relative merits of the leaders would have to be adopted. It would never do to leave it a question of so many inches. There would need to be a special officer to decide what is ‘ hard luck ’ and what isn’t. And how often he would be sold by appearances. Can any man pretend to say for certain about every race all through a meeting that this winner was all out and that that one had a bit to spare ? It seems to me that it would not be fair to introduce this sort of consideration at all. It is, of course, annoying—beastly annoying, if you like —to lose a dividend by a short head ; but that is one of the risks you run in backing a horse. Would it not be still more annoying to find that, after putting your pieces down, say, to level money about your fancy, it got home by only a head, and you discovered that you just got your money back ? That is what would happen when a winner went out at what, under present arrangements would be a 30s dividend. Moreover, if the dividend is to be split up so as to afford consolation for hard luck, why stop at consoling the second horse ? We do sometimes see a third so close up as to be beaten by only a head ; and, once the principle of solatium is admitted, we might have it argued that the second horse, even though beaten by but a nose, has not really had such hard luck as another horse in the race which has perhaps not finished at all. In a hurdle race, for instance, a horse actually a neck in front at the last fence, and winning easily, may be' pushed off. It seems to me that the arguments in the preceding paragraph in favour of the Taranaki proposal are really of very little weight as against the writer’s own contentions on the other side, and the more I think of the proposition the less I like it.” Precisely, we merely put forward one or two arguments relating to the proposition without stating we were in favour or against the proposal. Further consideration of the matter brings us exactly to our contemporary’s conclusion, viz., that the arguments against the proposal are stronger than those for it.