AUSTRALIA’S CHAMPION COLT A ROARER.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVI, Issue 949, 14 May 1908, Page 6

AUSTRALIA’S CHAMPION COLT A ROARER.

The disgrace of Mountain King in the Cumberland Stakes, makes one feel sad (writes Terlinga in the “Australasian”). It is his only bad race since he ran in the Maribyrnong Plate, and the result stamps him a proved roarer. Everyone knew that his wind infirmity was becoming more and more pronounced, but if he had left off racing after the All-Aged Stakes he would have gone to the stud unconvicted, so to speak. Now, in spite of his third in the Melbourne Cup, Mountain King will be looked back to as a brilliant roarer. There are plenty of them now, and they are on the increase. Whether the infirmity is hereditary or not is a question upon which authorities differ. The late Duke of Westminster, I have read, was considered to know as much of horses as any man in England. He sold the peerless Ormonde for 14,000 guineas to go out of England, because he considered that he would only do harm to England’s blood stock. Other people declare that roaring invariably follows upon a bad eold, although, of course, some of them became affected in their wind. In Australia plenty of imported roarers have got sound stock. I am told The Premier was a roarer, and I know Ace of Clubs, the sire of that great stayer King of the Ring, was. Joseph Burton declares that a bad cold was the cause of Mountain King becoming a whistler, and he says it was the same with Wigelmar; but in her case, what about Master Foote and Cleis? Did they inherit their musical tendencies from their dam, Wigelmar, or did they both contract colds early in life?