CANTERBURY NOTES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume VI, Issue 299, 16 April 1896, Page 8

CANTERBURY NOTES.

|_FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.],

At a meeting of the Canterbury Metropolitan Trotting Association the programme lor the two day’s meeting of the Canterbury Trotting Club was approved. The following notice of motion was given for next meeting: —“ That this Association takes irn mediate steps to adopt a system of branding and registering all horses trotting under its rules, and, in the meantime, that the Association make enquiries, and invite suggestions regarding the branding from all interested in the purifying of the sport; and also that letters be written to the various Associations in New Zealand asking for their co-operation in this matter.” The stewards of the Lancaster Park Trotting Club held an inquiry into the conduct of two men, an owner and a trainer, at their recent meeting. They had misconducted themselves on the lawn in the psesence of ladies, and their language was not of the purest. After hearing both men, the Steward’s commented severely upoh their conduct, and whilst censuring them they were informed that a repetition would be severely dealt with.

Pastime, by Childe Harold, who won a mile trot at Lancaster Park, has been bought by Mr V. Harris, the owner of Rita, for 59gs.

At the Taieri Race Meeting on Easter Monday J. Allan, R. Allan, and Hendricks were found guilty of ioul riding in the One Mile and a Half Trot. The stewards fined J. Allan £7, R. Allan £4, and Hendricks £4. Charley Cochran, the man who was caretaker of Goldsmith Maid, 2.14, when that mare was trotting queen of .America, is still taking care of horses, although he is now eighty-two years old. Cochran was born in New York, and he began taking care of horses when a mere boy. He has at different times followed other pursuits, but always to drift back to the stables, for so painstaking and skilful was he that he could always be sure of getting good pay. After Goldsmith Maid’s retirement the old man went to California, and since that time he has been employed at Palo Alto. While there he has had charge of Ansel, Electricity, Whips, sire of Azote, 2.04 f, and he has now charge of Azmoor.

Three Cheers was submitted to auction at Christchurch, but was passed in at £33. The following good story is told about Robert Bonner (the owner of the famous Maud S.) by a friend : —“ 1 met my old friend, Robert Bonnerat his stable in Fifty-fifth Street, the other day, as busily engaged with his various traps and horses as be used to be with his Ledger, but looking a little older than when he set his own type. He was very happy on the occasion of his last visit to the Hamlin’s at Village Farm. While there he superintended the shoeing of several trotters, and among the interested spectators was a farmer of the neighbourhood, who literally drank in every word and movement with mouth, eyes and ears, and in the evening at the village grocery related what hact occurred. “ Hamlin has a new blacksmith out to the farm to-day shoein’ his horses, an’ I’ll be danged if he didn’t know his business. They say he come from York, an’ I’m thinkin’ of gettin’ him out to my place to shoe some of my trotters. He goes by the name of Bonner.”

The initial steps in the realisation of the estate of the late John Goldsmith were taken a few day ago. An auction of everything connected with the training stables, except the horses, was hdd on the farm at Washingtonville. It was almost a relic sale, and relic prices were forgiven. A pair of cuff boots or quarter boots would be held up “ These boots were worn by Muta Wilkes,” and straightway bids would roll in ontil they brought far more than the first cost. Old road carts, sulkies, waggons, etc., some of them dating from the day when Alden Goldsmith was making turf history, sold for prices that must have been prompted by sentiment only. Thirty or forty cows were among the offerings, and these shared in the general boom. If the neighbours of the Goldsmiths could not get old harness or old vehiclos they were content to get a cow. Anything for a memento of the famous family of horsemen who had lived for so many generations among them. — Spirit of the Times.