Sporting and Dramatic REVIEW AND Licensed Victuallers' Gazette. With which is incorporated the Weekly Standard Thursday, December, 29, 1904. WHERE ARE OUR STATERS?

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIII, Issue 773, 29 December 1904, Page 6

Sporting and Dramatic REVIEW AND Licensed Victuallers' Gazette. With which is incorporated the Weekly Standard Thursday, December, 29, 1904. WHERE ARE OUR STATERS?

There is no questioning the fact that in England and America both Australian and New Zealand horses, especially the latter, have earned golden opinions as to their staying qualifications, and this was the reason why Carbine, Trenton and other colonial stallions were purchased by breeders in the Old Country. This being so it seems somewhat curious to find that in this colony, credited as being the very home of the stayer, whenever there is a race over any distance of country the number of competitors is very limited, no matter how high the stake may be. Despite the big prize there is no getting away from the fact that the last New Zealand Cup was a failure, and was in addition won by a horse possessing but few qualifications to be considered in the championship class. Of the Auckland Cup last Monday the same tale has to be told, for both I numerically and from a class point of view the field was wretchedly weak, while by no stretch of imagination could the winner be considered other than a fair handicap horse. What then has become of our I.ochiels, Nelsons, ’ Carbines, Trentons, and the like ? Truly I at the present time there seems to be a pitiable dearth of genuine stayers, although animals who can scamper over five furlongs are more numerous than ever. What is the reason for this decline in the stamina of our thoroughbreds ? Partly no doubt it may be accounted for by the early racing of two-year-olds, which practice is greatly to be deplored, but there must be some other reason which is making the genuine

stayer an almost unknown quantity. Bad as is this state of affairs out here in England and America the position appears to be even worse. In his book entitled “The English Turf,” Mr Richardson, a great authority on the subject, when writing of the merits of Australian and American horses says :— “It should be pointed out that the imported Australians differ very much from the Americans, and as far as I can judge the last-named are not so likely to improve the English blood as tl e Antipodean horses. Perhaps it is not generally known that nine tenths of the Americans are not pure bred. Some, of course strain back to English ancestry on both sides of the house, but a large majority go back to obscurity, and are no doubt descended from native mares of anything but pure breed. The Australians on the other hand can all be traced to imported English sires and mares, and thus by breeding with them in England, it is a case of returning to the old blood, which has been freshened and probably invigorated by no incrossing for several generations, and by the eminently favourable climate for horse breeding of the land of the Southern Gross. What is quite clear at present is that the average American does not stay anything like so well as the average Australian. The rank and file of the Americans we have seen in this country do best at a mile, and few of them can go no further than a mile and a-half. Some exceptions there have been, notably Foxhall, who won the Cesarewitch, as a three year-old under 7st 121 b, and I need hardly write that no horse who is not a first-rate stayer could have done this. r J hat race, however, took place twenty years ago, and since that time hundreds of Ameiicans have been sent to this country, not one of whom will be handed down to posterity as a great or even good stayer. I have no hesitation in saying that English-bred horses are better stayers than their trans Atlantic neighbours, and that the Justralians have a pull over us in the matter of stamina.”

Coming from such an expert on the subject this opinion must carry great weight. At the same time it is to be feared that, although the colonies have produced fine stayers in the past, there is a great danger that this will not be so in the future. At present there are a dozen races run over five and six furlongs to one over any considerable distance of ground, and this naturally has -had the effect of an over production of speedy horses without stamina. The racing clubs can of course argue that if the long distance events receive such wretched support from owners as was the case wi<h bo h the big Cups this year, then there is no inducement to persevere with such races. There is a good deal of weight in the contention, but it mustnot beforgotten that one of the chief aims of racing is to improve the breed of horses, and this cannot be done by encourag ng the breeding of weedy sprinters. The question is a difficult one, but it should be faced, for there is i getting away from the fact that in ti.<• very home of the distance horse the lej. itimate stayer can be almost numbered upon the fingers of one hand.