CANTERBURY NOTES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume VI, Issue 301, 30 April 1896, Page 8

CANTERBURY NOTES.

[FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.], At the North Canterbury Races, Three Cheers won the Two-Mile Trot from scratch, Daisy being his nearest attendant. Barn Dance won the OneMilc Trot, Peggy second. All persons laying tote odds at the Canterbury Trotting Club’s Meeting will be prosecuted for trespassing. Notice of motion was given, that horses in one stable, engaged in the same race, be, in future, bracketed together on the totalisator. There is enough of this class about already, without making any more, and the local authorities have their hands full investigating the many cases continually cropping up. Mr A. J. Rattray does little else now but worry round for information. If he and those helping him were assisted by other trotting bodies, an end mightjsoon be put to the practice of “ ringing in.”

the Ganterbury-bred mare, Fiona, had been shipped to Lyttelton by the s.s. Tasmania. Mr Rattray accordingly boarded the Tasmania on her arrival in port, and after inspecting the mare, unhesitatingly identified her as Fiona. He wired the Hawkes Bay Club to this effect. The mare was to be offered for sale at. Tattersail’s on Saturday, but when the sale commenced, the auctioneer stated that Fiona was not in the yards, but, he added, “ you will hear all about it in a few days.”

For some weeks past, the Trotting Association in Canterbury have bad reason to believe that Fiona has been running in tiie North Island under another name, and three weeks ago they called upon D. Munro, her trainer, to produce her. or suffer the penalty of disqalification. Munro failed to produce the mare, and the matter is now under consideration.

Trotting seems to have a fair chance of becoming a thing of the past in New Zealand, if only half one hears is true. Only let some stranger win an important event, and at once enquiries are made as to whether he is not another “ ringer.”