Sporting and Dramatic REVIEW AND LICENSED VICTUALLERS' GAZETTE. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Thursday, September 28. 1899.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume X, Issue 479, 28 September 1899, Page 10

Sporting and Dramatic REVIEW AND LICENSED VICTUALLERS ' GAZETTE. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Thursday, September 28. 1899.

m-iv-n AVONDALE JOCKEY CLUB,

Fine weather, large fields, excellent racing, and plenty of people made the Spring Meeting of the Avondale

Jockey Club a distinct success, and it is our very pleasant duty to congratulate the executive generally, and Mr Michael Foley, the president, and Mr Hayr, the secretary, particularly, upon a triumph that was well deserved. The number of horses starting at the meeting was a great feature. On the first day one hundred and nine horses went on to the course, and on the second day ninetyeight faced the barrier. Yet notwithstanding the strength of the fields the starting of Mr Cutts was altogether admirable and in keeping with the excel-.

lence displayed all round. There is one slight improvement required, and that’is more grass on the course in front of the grandstand and paddock. That part of of the track wants ploughing, sanding, and sowing with grass. When that is done the course will be a really capital one, and the Avondale Jockey Club second to no suburban club in the colony.

THE A.R.C. NOMINATIONS.

While the entries for the City Handicap, the Prince of Wales’ Handicap, and the Handicap Hurdles, to be decided at the Spring

Meeting of the Auckland Racing Club, do not show a surfeit of foreign horses, they are quite satisfactory. It must be remembered that spring meetings are taking place all over the colony during the week the A R.C. gathering is held, and, as little fish are sweet, no doubt a good many horses will remain to do battle nearer home in preference to making a long journey and running the risk of defeat. The nominations for the Summer Meeting are really excellent numerically, and also in point of quality. For the Auckland Cup fifty-nine horses are nominated, only one less than the entries received for the New Zealand Cup. The Auckland race will be a Southern Cup battle all over again, though, as the form of the entrants will be pretty well exposed by the time Mr Evett comes to make the handicap, we must not expect to find anything like Mr Henry’s adjustment scheme. The Auckland Cup entries this year exceed the number received last year by nine. In the mile and a half race—the A.R.C. Handicap—the horses entered number sixty-three, against forty-seven received in 1898 ; and the Summer Cup is proving its popularity in attracting sixty-seven nominations, against the sixty-one of last year. In the Auckland Steeplechase there are twenty-eight horses, against eighteen; and the six furlong race—the Railway Handicap — has called forth, forty-one nominations, or two in excess of those entered in 1898. Taken all round, the nominations received by MrPercival last week are a pleasing indication of the progress the Auckland Racing Club is making.

A FAMOUS __ . IKAIJMEK-

Probably there was no better 3 ud ß e o* a racehorse, or more astute trainer of the thoroughbred, than the late

Mr Robert Peck, whose death is announced by the latest English mail. Mr Peck was born at Grove House, Malton, Yorkshire, in 1845, and was therefore a comparatively young man. He came of a training family, in whom certain tradition about horse education have descended from father to son for a great number of years. His father, Charles Peck, was training at the Malton establishment when John Scott was the Wizard of the North, and Bill Scott one of the celebrated jockeys of the day. 1 In his early youth Robert Peck entered the service of William I’Anson, the trainer of Blink Bonny, Blair Athol, and other famous horses. The first winner of a big race he prepared was Regalia, the victrix of the Oaks in 1865. In the same year he became private trainer to Lord Stamford. He won numerous minor races for his patron, but could never succeed in getting a really first-class-horse, though he spent any amount of money. On leaving Lord Stamford in 1868 he started as a public trainer at Spring Cottage, Malton. Lord Stamford at parting gave Peck a colt named Fichu, with whom he won the Goodwood. Stakes in 1869 and the York Cup in 1870. He shortly removed to Russley, near Lambourne, in Berkshire, becoming private trainer to the wealthy ironmaster, Mr James Merry. King of the Forest, trained by Peck, ran third in the Two Thousand in 1871, dead-heated for second, place with Albert Victor behind Favonius in the Derby of that year, and, as we well remember, defeated his Derby conqueror at Ascot in the Prince of Wales Stakes. Favonius was a tremendously hot favorite for the race, and his defeat caused a lot of money to change hands. In 1873 Peck won his first Derby with Doncaster—the sire of our own St. Leger—and set the seal on his fame as a trainer, for at the time he was only twenty-eight years of age. In. Doncaster’s Derby there was another dead heat for second place, Gang Forward and Kaiser chasing Mr Merry’s colt home. That year was a memorable one for Peck, for Marie Stuart carried.

the ironmaster’s colors to victory in the Ascot New Stakes, the Oaks, the Yorkshire Oaks, and the Doncaster St. Leger, while Blantyre won the Liverpool Summer Cup, and filled to the brim the measure of success. Doncaster was Robert Peck’s viascot. When Mr Merry resolved to give up racing, Peck purchased Doncaster for £IO,OOO, and sold him to the Duke of Westminster £14,000, the highest price ever given at that time for a racehorse. Peck trained many winners for the Duke of Westminster, notably Bend Or, Pelegrino, and Victor Chief, while for Lord Rosebery and other sportsmen he also gained success. When Mr Peck decided to give up training in 1881 he engaged his head lad, Hopper, as trainer, and became an owner. In 1883 he won £16,000 in stakes, in 1884 £12,000, and his winnings in 1885 were more than £20,000. It will be remembered that Mr Peck sold the St. Simon horse, Haut Brion, to Mr Sam Hordern, of Sydney. The deceased was a thoroughly genuine Yorkshireman, good hearted and bluff. He rarely made mistakes, perhaps the most noticeable being the purchase of Maximilian as a yearling for 4,100g5, at that time a phenomenal price: By judicious attention to profitable investments he added very considerably to his earnings on the Turf. He was clever, and he was popular; and, therefore, his untimely demise is regretted by the English-speaking sporting world.