Turf Topics.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume V, Issue 224, 8 November 1894, Page 7

Turf Topics.

[By

Reviewer.]

The late Martin Burke was 39 years of age. It is said on the Sydney side that Mrs James White has refused £25,000 for Abercorn. Mr. W. Knight has been appointed handicapper for the Than.es Jockey Club Summer Meeting. The Musket —Onida mare, Hilda, has presented the Wellington Park sire, Castor, with a colt foal. J. Rae has purchased a Greenlane residence, and intends erecting suitable stabling at an early date; The train arrangements in connection with tomorrow’s racing at Ellerslie will be found in our business columns. Several coupons in connection with the Review treble have been unavoidably held over until our next issue. Acceptances in connection with the Gisborne Racing Club’s Spring Meeting, to be held tomorrow, appear in another column. The Waitara Jockey Club Committee have opened the programme’ of their hack meeting to be held on December 6th —to ponies.

Racing in olden times : —Honor and glory, 1; sport, 2 ; stakes, 3. Nowadays : : —Tatt’s sweep, 1; stakes, 2 ; hang-the-public, 3.— Bulletin. I hear that Lavinia hurt herself while doing a gallop on the course proper on Friday last. Her chance of seeing the Welcome Stakes is remote. Acceptances in connection with the spring meeting of the Town and Suburban Racing Club, to be held to-morrow, appear in another column. The successful sires on the opening day of the C.J.C. Meeting were Cadogan. Newminster, St. George, Wapiti, Total Eclipse, Stonyhurst, and Maxim.

The nominations in connection with the Wellington Racing Club’s Spring Meeting, to be held on the 22nd and 24th of November, appear elsewhere.

The usual excuses are 'being made for the horses that did not get home in the Melbourne Cup, but I’ll be bound the truth is the best horse won.

In view of the approaching sales of yearlings, it is a happy occurrence that a locally-stationed stallion should figure as the sire of the New Zea r land Cup winner. The following foalings are announced from Wellington Park : — Hilda (Musket — Onida), colt to Castor ; Antelope (Apremont — Miss Kate), colt to Castor. The Referee states that Norton when he gets to England is to be placed in Arthur Yates’s hands, and that Sternchaser may accompany Ascot’s son to the Old World.

Norton lakes a stone from the champion, Redleap, in the V.R.C. Steeplechase, to be run at Flemington on Saturday next. Norton at 13.2 will find Redleap, 14.2, a hard nut to crack.

The following nominations have been received for the Egmont Sires’ Ha<-k Produce Stakes, 1898: —- Lebel, Foul Shot, Gipsy King, The Australian, Strenuous, Vanguard, Eros, Puriri, Morpheus, Patchwork, Tim Whiffler, Natator, Redwood.

A Melbourne friend of Bookmaker Joe Thompson has received a cable from the erst Melbourne leviathan informing him that Thompson won £12,000 on the Cambridgeshire. A little time back he was low down, having had a big run of bad luck, but the turn of the tide has apparently set in.

There was a lot of Auckland money behind St. Clements in the C.J.C. Stewards Handicap, and those who lost over St. Leger’s son may be advised to remember the Electric Plate, w.f.a., four furlongs, run on the concluding day of the Riccarton races. That event should be a good thing for St. Clements. If anyone is desirous of touting the training at Ellerslie he may be informed that things are now wearing a very early aspect at our convincing ground. If you allow many streaks of dawn to broaden before reaching the ground you might as well stop in bed. The galloping in earnest is proceeded with very early. Once more the favourite for the V.R.C. Derby has met with defeat. A reference to the history of the race since 1880 shows that only six favourites have justified their positions in the market since the date mentioned, viz., Navigator (1882), Nordenfeldt (1885), Trident (1886), Dreadnought (1889), Strathmore (1891), and Camoola (1892). The picture of Impulse, exhibited in Queenstreet, shows Jas. Kean holding the gelding by the bridle. After the Cup was run the veteran trainer had the second fiddle, Lottie, by the head. But a rare second violin is the daughter of Muskapeer. “ Beaten, but not disgraced,” is the legend placed against her name by the Cup of 1894.

Months ago Jas.-Kean, Lottie’s trainer, expressed the belief that Impulse was the only horse that would beat the Muskapeer mare ; and the owner of Impulse was confident that he held Kean’s charge safe. Both proved correct, but I don’t think the party behind the Cup winner thought Lottie would run such a great race.

The Champion Trot of three miles, to be decided at the Lancaster Park Amateur Trotting Club’s Meeting to-morrow, has the following horses engaged : —Norman 225, Ruadan 355, Little Bob 365, Cowboy 38s, Ipswich 40s, Creole 40s, Blue Mountain 445, Lady Warbeck 465. I think the winner will be either Ruadan or Blue Mountain.

At a recent meeting of the Western Divisional Committee of the North Auckland Racing Association, a communication from the Eastern Divisional Committee, suggesting that' clubs not using the totalisator at the race meetings be allowed to charge more than the usual five per cent for nominations and acceptances, came up for consideration. It was eventually decided that no alteration be made and that no club registered under the North Auckland Racing Association be allowed to charge more than five per cent on the value of the stakes as entrance money.

Messrs. Yuille and Co., the Melbourne auctioneers, advertise .Loyalty, Philson, and Bob Ray for sale. If the animals are not sold privately they are to be submitted to auction at an early date. Merganser is once more in work. Her trainer is confident the mare will get through a race preparation, and that his confidence may prove well founded will be the general wish of all admirers of a true racer.

Breeders of stock may be reminded that nominations for the Auckland Guineas of 1898 (for now yearlings) will close with Mr. Percival at the office of the A.R.C. at 8 p.m. on Friday, November 16th; or with the Secretary of the C.J.C., Canterbury ; D. J.C., Dunedin; H.8.J.C., Napier ; W.R.C., Wellington ; and M.R.C., Blenheim. The Taieri Amateur Turf Club Committee, after discussing the most effective means which could be adopted to suppress the laying of totalisator odds, decided recently that prosecutions should follow in the case of any metallician found indulging in “ tote ” betting. Under the Gaming Act passed during the last session the offence is punishable by imprisonment. Mr W. Percival has a handsome yearling colt, by St. Leger—Satanella, who should prove a worthy brother to St. Clements if looks are any criterion. The youngster is a bit. small, perhaps, but of a very promising cut, and as neat ly turned a piece of horseflesh as - one could wish to see. Pari l , Port sea, and Impulse are smallish horses', so size does not go for everything. It has been decided that the head-quarters of the New Zealand Kennel Club will remain in Christchurch for a further period of twelve months. The question of subsequent removal will be decided at the annual meeting, to be held at the end of the present week. Mr W. H. WynnWilliams has been re-elected president of the club, and Mr J. A. Connell treasurer and secretary. A local paper comments on the fact that the erst New Zealander Upshot (late Ultimatum) who won a 14.1 Galloway race in Sydney, suddenly developed a 15.1 appearance in Melbourne when he ran second to Escapade in one of the big races at Caulfield. Well, it is funny how well-bred racers get into the 14.1 class in Sydney, although they appear nearly a hand bigger. How it is done is a mystery. The sum of £2,059 was put through the machine at the Eltham Hack Meeting, the results of which are given elsewhere. Kiora, by Mufti —Mockingbird, scored a meritorious win in the Hurdle Race, carrying 11.2 and winning easily. The Eltham Cup fell to Itch, who carried his 7.4 over the mile-and-a-half in 2.5 J and paid a dividend of £l3 16s. My selection, Irish Twist, could only obtain third position. At the time of writing there appears to be some uncertainty whether the starting-machine will be used at Ellerslie to-morrow. The requisite gear is not obtainab’e ; and though the agent has been advised that it has been shipped from Sydney as per arrangement, the fact remains that it has not made its appearance up to date, so that there is a big probability of the man with the flag reappearing for the time being. The result of the Melbourne and N Z. Cups was far from satisfactory to members of the Auckland ring. Impulse was well supported early in the day for our Cup, and Paris and Patron were selected by several double punters of the £2OO to 5s persuasion. Mi* Bradley and his friends threw in for a considerable stake over the victory of the St. Leger geldiug, and the local pencillers will have, to find a fairish share of the money. The fee for the services of Handsome Jack (St. Leger—Radiant) is five guineas, not three guineas as advertised in our List issue. Last year the sum of seven guineas was charged for the stud horse in question, and the intended alteration from the figure 7 to 5 was prevented through the customary typographical error. However, the correctjfigure is surely anything but out of the way when one considers that this handsome young stallion (his foaling year was 1890) claims Doncaster’s great son for sire, and the daughter of Robinson Crusoe and Radiance as dam. By St. Leger out of a sister to Quadrant, is breeding calculated to satisfy any breeder and cause him to regard the fee charged for the horse’s services as moderate indeed.

A feature of the racing on the opening day of the V.R.C. Spring Meeting was the difference in the times recorded to those experienced at the same meeting last year. Havoc’s Imin. 48sec. for the weight-for age Maiden Plate mile is 2Jsec. behind the time taken by Alpine last year; Ruenaif’s 2min. for the Melbourne Stakes was beaten by nearly 2sec. by Loyalty ; Foxtail’s 2min. 53£sec. for the Hotham Handicap, one mile and a-half and a distance, has to be placed against last year’s 2min. 51 4-sth sec., cut out by Creasy and Straightfire, who ran a dead heat; and The Harvester’s Derby time, 2min. was beaten by lisec. by Carnage, the 1893 victor. The Malua filly, Arihi, winner of the Maribyrnong Plate gave a better performance than Dreamland, who took Imin. 4jsec. to win last year. Arihi beat that time on Saturday last by 2|sec.

/ The following programmes have been passed by the A.R.C. : —Lichfield Annual Meeting, January 1 ; Onehunga and Otahuhu Racing Club, December 8; Ngaruawahia Racing Club, December 22 ; Alexandra Annual Races, Decembei* 26 ; Drury Racing Club, December 28; Takapuna Jockey Club, January 26 and 29; Takapuna Jockey Club, May 18 and 24 ; Wairenga-a-Hika Jockey Club, December 26 ; Poverty Bay Turf Club, January 10 and 11. Licenses have been granted as follows : —Jockeys : Robert Waters, J. Slator, John Keane, William Gall, W. Barron, J. Griffiths, W. L. Fletcher, Aif. Williams, J. Sceats, T. Sharp, W. Ashdown, H. Linnell. Trainers : A. H. Barron, W. L. Fletcher, Alfred Williams, James Sceats, H. Linnell, J. Egan, Duncan Hepburn (to train The Turk and Wool Queen). Disqualifications have been removed Penguin, Butterfly, Kelvin Grove.