OTAGO.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XII, Issue 750, 21 July 1904, Page 9

OTAGO.

Dunedin, July 20. The Southland trainer J. Lawson has the following, team in hand at present :— Pellet (Leinster —Parvula), Follicle (Casket —Parvula), and the St. Ilario —Minarette yearling, a five-year-old gelding by Captain Webb —Cartouche, named Shield, Wairere (Papakura —Undine), Radiant (Sir Launcelot —Rodeout), Office Girl (The Officer —Tomboy), Order (The Officer— Spot), and Orderly (The Officer —Sabre). The last-mentioned quartette are rising two-year-olds.

The cabled announcement of the retirement from racing of Mr J. W. Larnach calls to mind that that gentleman was responsible for what was probably the longest ride ever achieved in this colony in 1870, when making a tour of the world. He landed at the Bluff and after purchasing some horses he and a companion rode to Auckland, and at the termination of the trip sold the horses at a profit. Air Larnach was subsequently seriously injured in the hunting field in New South Wales. In a sportsmanlike spirit he mounted his cousin, Mr Donald Larnach, on his own hunter, and a horse which he had hired for his own use from a livery stable gave him a fall from which he has never completely recovered. Mr Larnach is one of the comparatively few who have achieved the distinction of achieving the sportman’s ambition of winning the English Derby when he captured it with Jeddah, who has been the greatest outsider to score in the Epsom prize. The South Canterbury Jockey Club has appointed Mr C. A. Jefferson starter for their next meeting at a salary of £7 7s. The South Canterbury Jockey Club will in future give place money in all races in which the prize money is £5O or over. At least three horses are to start or there will be no third prize. The South Canterbury Jockey Club have fallen in line with other up-to-date racing bodies, and is to have starting machines erected at the five, six, seven, eight and ten furlong posts on their track. The machines are to be Mr Rose’s patent barrier, which have won general favour wherever they have been in use. The Cromwell Jockey Club starts next season with a credit balance of £129 3s and a membership roll which totals 65. The profit on this season’s transactions amounted to £9O, and £430 is to be distributed in stakes by the club next season.

Fair Nell, a half-sister by Apremont to the recently defunct Sir Modred and dam of some excellent performers in Saracen, Loyalty and Bonnie Scotland, is to visit the Elderslie stallion Stepniak this season. Fair Nell has previously been mated with Musket horses in the shape of Maxim, Medallion, and Mosquetaire, but for some reason or other none of the produce proved of much account, and it will be interesting to note how the successful son of Steppe fares with Idalia’s daughter.

An illustration of the fact that the interest in racing is on the up grade in North Otago was provided last week at the annual meeting of the North Otago Jockey Club by the fact that the attendance was the largest on record since the formation of the club.

Aeronaut, an aged gelding by Phaeton out of Sporting Grove—the aged dam of Perkin Warbeck 11., Antelope, Prime Warden and Catherine Wheel (the dam of Treadmill) —won a Maiden Steeplechase on the first day of the V.R.C. National Meeting.. He went out an outsider in the betting and was practically unsupported in the market.

The trotter Ruie has been sold to an Australian buyer. The St. Louis gelding has shown excellent form since he came to New Zealand, and in the land of his birth he should prove more than a useful sort on the track.

The Petrovna —Bagpipes case is expected to come up for decision in the near future but as far as can be learnt no date of hearing has been set down.