Sporting and Dramatic REVIEW AND LICENSED VICTUALLERS’ GAZETTE WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE WEEKLY STANDARD Thursday, January 31, 1901.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XI, Issue 529, 7 February 1901, Page 10

Sporting and Dramatic REVIEW AND LICENSED VICTUALLERS’ GAZETTE WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE WEEKLY STANDARD Thursday, January 31, 1901.

THE Referring to the question of ADVERTISING the com P advertising of racing club programmes in the MONOPOLY. New Zealand Referee, the Hawke's Raji Herald thus delivers itself :—“The tendency nowadays in this Democratic colony is to break down monopolies in every direction, and to enable a larger proportion of the community to share in. the benefits arising from industry and enterprise, wheee only a few enjoyed them before. There is a monopoly in the racing pastime, and it consists of a rule by which every club in the colony is obliged to advertise its programmes in the N.Z. Referee, at Christchurch. This is probably the most arbitrary piece of racing legislation that has ever been imposed upon any people. It has been tolerated for some years, but if the North Island Clubs work together there is no reason why it should be endured very much longer. Taking the Hawke’s Bay district for example, we find that small clubs like Porangahau, Rissington, Wairoa, and others have to publish their programmes at Christchurch, m the official calendar, regardless of any benefit they may derive therefrom. It cannot be presumed for a moment that such clubs get any advantage by having to compulsorily spend money in this way, for in every instance the success of their meetings depends on the publicity given to them by the local papers. Hence, why the monopoly is maintained it is hard to explain. What applies with equal force to the Auckland, Taranaki, Poverty Bay, Wanganui, Rangitikei, Wairarapa, Manawatu, and Wellington districts. The Taranaki Jockey Club has, we notice, taken this question in hand. At its last meeting the large cost of advertising the programmes and other notices made compulsory by the Racing Conference was commented upon, it being held that the outlay was quite out of proportion to any benefits that had accrued. A suggestion was made, and favourably received, that an effort should be made at the next meeting of the Conference to take away the monopoly new enjoyed by the Referee, or at any rate to permit Northern clubs to advertise in papers that have a far larger circu*

lation in this island. That an official racing calendar is needed for this colony is generally admitted, but a publication on the lines of those issued in the sister colonies would probably be quite as satisfactory and much less costly to individual clubs. There no monopoly is given to a newspaper, nor is a hardship imposed upon small clubs by an arbitrary regulation. In taking the initiative in the matter the Taranaki Jockey Club is serving a good purpose, and it has the sympathy and support of many of the smaller racing clubs which at the present time are suffering maintenance of the monopoly. That all the racing clubs of the North Island should have to heavily subsidise a paper published in the South Island is a great injustice, especially seeing that in the majority of instances the clubs depend for publicity of their meetings on the local journals, and thus an unnecessary outlay is involved in the subsidy. It is time that the North Island clubs made their voices heard on this question.

• ' To the holiday number of the BREEDING “Breeder and Sportsman” Mr THE ji. J, Gilbert contributes an TROTTER. ar ti c i e on « Environment —the Basis of Evolution and Perfection in Breeding the Trotter,” from which we make the following extracts :■ —“ The study of breeding any special species of animals, if done studiously, will bring us in touch with the most subtle of nature’s laws. Those who breed to satisfy some fancy representing the largest comb on the cock, or the longest feathers on his lege, or any feature, not in, and of itself, a valuable factor in the usefulness of the* breed, can only expect the minimum degree of the manifestations of natural laws This statement is not intended as a personal reflection on any class of breeders, but is based on the very nature of the work undertaken. The trotting horse of to-day is rounded into a reasonably perfect form of development. The nervous energy, the will to do or die, the staying power to repeat heat after heat, within one or two seconds, is no longer the gift of one or two celebrities, as in the, days of old, when Lady Suffolk’s 2.29| could not be beaten, and again when Flora Temple’s 2.19 J was thought by many the climax; again, Dexter 2.17 i, was called the incomparable, so great his renown that his name was a household word, appearing on our food and drink ; so confident was.Mr Bonner of 2.17 being the limit of trotting speed that he had a standing offer of $lOO,OOO for any trotter that should beat it. Again, Goldsmith Maid, another and greater than them all, reduced the record to 2.14. Then came Baras with 2.13 J, each and every one of these animals selling for large sums of money. From Rarus to the preseift day, extreme speed has come fib often, that its value, by reason of its increased production, has greatly decreased. Surely the exploits of the American trotting horse is ever rising into a fuller and more glorious future. We hear of scientific man’s victory over nature; this statement is fulj of error and profoundly false. Man has no victory over nature; man is really to be con gratulated when he can sit at nature’s feet, and by the greatest effort on his part, grasp any of the profound manifestations of nature. Hence, man, to succeed in the subjugation of nature, must first subjugate himself to her laws, and the man. who by nature can adapt himself to nature’s laws, will be found in the front rank of what we term intelligence and progression. The great strides made in developing the trotter from three minutes to the very threshold of two minutes, has in a large degree resulted from natural selection, by which types have been slowly changed by environment, which slowly caused the modification in type, while heredity, from sexual selection, gives to the animal fixity of character, form and purpose. Can any student of evolution who has witnessed the great trotting horses from Lady Suffolk 2.291> to The Abbot 2.03£, ascribe any particular and all propotent reason for the great difference in their speed ? Environment comes the nearest to covering the answer of any term known to the writer. Environment produces evolution. Evolution is not a synonym of perfection in nature, it is a change wrought by environment. Should environment be in combat with the laws of nature, then evolution will be slow in causing modification of type, with the chances greatly tending toward unsoundness. On the other hand, when environment is in harmony with nature, sexual selection, which is a synonymous term for heredity, slowly but surely fixes a type and character in • ur trotters both stable and desirable. The sickle was as suitable to the environment of man, when it was used, as the twine binder of to-day. No doubt the stage coach of former years suited the environment of the u,sers of it as well as the palace coach of today. The spinning wheel of sixty years ago was as perfectly adapted ,to its environment as the great looms and complicated mills of this day to

our needs. No doubt that individuals and machinery were equally perfect in their adaption to their environment. J volution being the offspring of environment, and man’s greatest ambition being progression and improvement in the trotting horse, we find its environment bettered. Evolution, rapidly changing the wide sprawling gait of the early day trotters to the close-in gaited Electioneers of the present day. The writer avers without fear of successful contradicsion, that in no class of animal production has there been so great an advance in strength, beauty, uniformity, and speed as has come to the American trotting horse since 1880. This is true beyond a doubt; it is also a great compliment to the genius of American manhood. It proves that the breeders of trotters from the first started out on that broad, fundamental ground that all the weak points in the mechanism of this flying machine must first be eliminated. The soundness, both physical and mental, of sire and dam scrutunised by every breeder of any repute. Stallions were not bought or patronised whose dam had any weakness of any character. The breeders laid down the rule that it takes two good ones to make one at the best and then many blanks' appear. But soundness alone does not complete and will never produce a trotter* A still mightier factor, that of brain or mental heredity, is necessary, and to secure the great flights of speed now possessed by The Abbot, Alix, Oresceus, Charley Herr, and others, it has been necessary to bring it about by evolution.