WELLINGTON.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XV, Issue 883, 7 February 1907, Page 9

WELLINGTON.

WELLINGTON, February 6. The heavy investments made with the totalisator during the recent W.R.C. Summer Meeting, did not by any means represent the sum total of the business done over the racing. In several events there was strong runs on particular horses with the town S.P. men.. As these “ gee-gees” were, it is alleged, the only animals supported, and as they, as a rule, got first past the post, the layers have been pretty hard hit. Seemingly it is only a matter of time when those owners comprising the clever division will break the ring entirely. The S.P. men deserve no sympathy whatever, as they in their anxiety to obtain business, give unscrupulous •backers certain privileges which practically amounts to offering them a premium to fix up the less valuable events, and so relieve the bookmakers of their cash. The latter are continually declaring loudly that these tactics are being adopted; nevertheless they continue to accept no-reply wires ad lib. The report which was current here re the annullment of the disqualification of the hurdle horse Hydrant and his owner by the V.R.C. is, it transpires, incorrect. Mr. Brown, it seems, recovered through his solicitors the third money in the race for which his horse was disqualified. He then briefly reported to his Wellington friends that he had won his case against the V.R.C., and they quite naturally concluded that he had been successful in getting the ban removed. This, however, is not so, as Hydrant, with owner and rider, are still disqualified during the pleasure of the V.R.C. stewards. Hydrant’s owner, who returned to Wellington last week to attend to his business affairs, emphatically protests his innocence. He declares that he was treated with scant consideration by the V.R.C., and was not even permitted to be present when the enquiry was held. He further states that he was not allowed to see his horse weighed either out or in, and as a matter of fact had little to do with Hydrant or his rider after they reached the racecourse further than taking 500 to 60 about the horse for the race for which he was disqualified. His solicitors, Messrs. Gaunson and Lore, made a strong appeal for a re-hearing, but this has not up to the present been granted. Hydrant has in the meantime been left in Sydney with the trainer who had him during the V.R.C. meeting.