Turf Topics.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume V, Issue 221, 18 October 1894, Page 6

Turf Topics.

By

Reviewer.

St. Albans H has been scratched for the Melbourne Cup. In consequence of disobedience the whole 23 riders in the Toorak Handicap, run at Caulfield last Saturday, were fined £5 each. Such a development must be a strong argument in favour of the starting machine. Horse owners may be reminded that the second acceptance (10/) in connection with the Sires Hack Produce Stakes of 1896 of the Egmont Racing Club is due on Moncay, Feb. 25,1895, when the name of the horse must be given. The first acceptance (10/) lor the Produce Stakes, 1897, falls due on the same day.| The Foul Shotfcolt Aidershot showed a very respectable torn of foot on the second day of the’ North Otago Jockey Club’s Spring Meeting by winning both the mile events on the programme. In the President’s Handicap he cut out his mile in lmin 47sec, and later in the day won the Farewell Handicap mile with 8.8 up in lmin 46sec.

Skirmisher’s trainer denies the rumour that the colt is amiss.

The next meeting of the Wanganui Trotting Club, will be held on November 15th.

Rangipuhi’s owner has taken .£lOOO to .£4O about the horse New Zealand Cup chance.

Hune, who has produced to Cuirassier, came over from the North Shore for the purpose of revisiting the Musket horse. After having been mated with fifteen mares. Jeweller,, who was recently struck out of the Melbourne and Caulfield Cups, will be put into training again.

Sir George Clifford is a strong believer in a New Zealand Jockey Club, which body would, he considers, materially diminish the abuses of the Turf. And it must be admitted they require some little diminution.

St. Hippo may see the race track at no distant date. He is in the best of health, and when the colours are once more above him I fancy the Australian tracks will be the scene of operations.

A half brother to Ida and Dorothy, Captive, (by Captivator—Bragela) is a likely horse for country racing and as he is in the market, up-country sportsmen may be recommended to give attention to his known ability as a galloper. The horse is in the best of fettle ana could be put in work at once.

The Goldsborough horse Brockleigh has broken down and has been scratched for all V.R.C. Spring engagements. The Hippocampus — Rosarina mare, Vieux Rose, foaled a filly to Cuirassier, but; unfortunately for Mr Lennard, the yo ungster only lived 24 hours.

Ata meeting of the Pakuranga Hunt Clu b Council held last week, the tender of Mr W. Blomfield for working the totalisator in connection with Saturday’s rao e meeting was accepted. Nominations in connection with the Gi sborne Racing Club's Spring Meeting to be held on Nov. 9th, will be found in another column. Weights are due to-day (Thursday, Oct. 18.) Mr Phil. Nathan, the Wellington bookmaker, has left New Zealand for Sydney. He has advertised (for the benefit of his clients) that owing to the alteration of the gaming law all wagers laid by him on the N.Z. Cup are ‘ off.’ Speedwell, a son of Springfield and Lady Munc aster, proved successful in the Middle Park Plate of 500 sovs and Sweepstake of 30 sovs each, run at the Newmarket Meeting on October 11th. Lord Zetland’s colt Keelson acted as rnnner-up to Speedwell, and Mr H. MoCalmont’s Raconteur filled third position.

Count Lehndorff, manager in chief of the German Imperial stock farms, offered Mr McCalmont 94,500 dollars for Isinglass, but no deal resulted.

The receipts of the French pari-mutuel during the year 1893, resulted in a balance of 54,807 francs being secured in favour of France’s breeding interests. P. McGrath, the Southern rider, has been suffering from an abcess under the arm. He is still on the sick list, but expects to be sufficiently recovered to ride at Cup time.

The French National Stock Farm employs 2,666 national public stallions for all kinds of use, running, trotting, coach and draft. This number will be increased by fifty yearly until the year 1900. Directum, the trotting stallion King of the U.S.A., went against his record at Chicago, on August 23rd, but the best mile he could cover was 2.10.

A steeplechase at Havre (distance one mile and seven furlongs) recently took half-an-hour to finish. All the horses engaged fell when the signal to start was given, and only one prad was equal to the task of getting round. He turned a ‘ seven ’ at every fence, and the jockey, seeing no competitors behind, leisurely got back to the saddle every time and completed the course amid derisive applause and ironical cheers of a much amused crowd. I

A colt by the defunct Maxim out of Carina has been entered for the English Derby of 1896. Mr Gollan had no fancy for the thirteen stone allotted to Norton in the two mile V.A.T.C. Steeplechase decided last Saturday, and the son of Ascot wa« scratched. A match race for yearlings was recently witnessed at Hawthorne one of the Western American racing centres. The spectacle of equine babies being whipped and spurred may be edifying to Americans, but it strikes me as nothing short of brutal.

There are about 60 horses working at Riccarton now and the doings of the Auckland candidates are keenly watched. Impulse is doing big work, having shown the best gallop of last week. Pegasus has not furnished so much as the touts expected.

A prominent item on the Saratoga (N.Y.) race card is a mile handicap of 25 dollars each. Starters pay 75 dollars additional to the stake which is guaranteed to the value of 5000 dollars by the champagne firm of Moet and Shandon, after whom the race is named.

Many good Victorian judges of horseflesh who saw Chesterman at Sydney will not have him at any price for either the Melbourne Cup or V.R.C. Derby. But an experienced man like Mr Dakin, the V.R.C. handicapper, thinks he must have a great chance in the Flemington event.

The cable tells us that Loyalty is returning to his three-year-old form, and on Saturday next when the Caulfield Cup comes up for decision, the son of St. George and Farewell will have a valuable opportunity for manifesting what he can do. That he will run a big horse I am more than inclined to fancy.

The winner of a Harlem (U.S.A.) selling race was recently disqualified because the jockey carried 31bs over weight. The American rule re overweights runs: —‘ If a horse carry more than 21bs which has not been duly declared, or more than 51bs overweight, he is disqualified.’ In the case under notice the overweight was not posted on the notice board, hence the disqualification.

The American racehorse breeder and owner Mr Lorillard, has his eye on the rich two and three-year-old stakes to be gained in England, and has made numerous entries in the old country’s two and three-year-old events. In a couple of years he will have a strong English stable, and looks forward confidently to his American bred racers capturing a large number of the plums offered by the English Clubs for early racing.

Christchurch writers state that Three Star is an unlikely starter for the New Zealand Cup. Well that may be so, but if it is, the Southern pressmen know more than the colt’s connections. A letter received from George Wright states that Castor’s son is doing as well as can be expected, and so far as the colt’s condition or the intentions of the stable are concerned there is not the slightest foundation for the idea that he is an unlikely starter.

The two turf plungers of the United States, Riley Grannan and Barney Schreiber, are notable instances of the luck that sometimes follows turfites. Grannan commenced life as a hotel bell boy and is now worth a quarter-of-a-million. Schreiber was a porter in a Kansas clothing house four years ago. To-day he is a Western turf magnate, at once an owner with a large racing and breeding establishment and a leviathan bookmaker, as he has four or five books at a meeting. In one ring alone Schreiber won last year 87,000 dollars.

Jockeys in the U.S.A, go in for valetß, judging from an account I recently read in an American paper. At a Jerome Park meeting, a horse called Glenmoyne easily defeated his opponents, but on returning to scale he was 2-|lbs underweight and was consequently disqualified. The exclamation given by the jockey of his shortage was that his coloured * valet ’ after making the correct weight at scale, prior to the race must have dropped a lead while carrying the saddle and weights from the weighing room to the horse. In our country tra prefer to see themselves that thei jockeys’ weight is correct, to leaving that important matter to either the rider or his ‘ valet.’

The agitation in New Zealand over the use of the totalisator, which is legalised by act of Parliament and pay s to the Government a tax of per cent., has (writes the New York Spirit of the Times) finally resulted in action by the local legislature, which recently passed a bill reducing the number of licences to racing associations under the totalisator act by two-thirds, the reduction not to go into effect until the expiration of another racing year We are having here under the Ives Bill about the same experience that thev have had in New Zealand since racing was legalised. A great many mushroom and unreliable racing associations sprang into existence there which took advantage of the law as a cloak for gambling. It was to prevent this abuse of the law that the recent bill was passed limiting the number of totalisator licenses to be issued.