TROTTING.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIX, Issue 1097, 16 March 1911, Page 9

TROTTING.

(By

“HAVOC.”)

FIXTURES. March 23 and 24—Wanganui T.C. April 1, 5 and S—Auckland T.C. Autumn

HANDICAPS. March 20— Auckland T.C. (First day)

ACCEPTANCES. March 24—Auckland T.C. (First day)

The Wanganui Trotting Club’s annual gathering takes place on Thursday and Friday next.

Handicaps for the openig day of the Auckland Trotting Club’s au+unin meeting will appear on Monday next. ■

So far as is known nothing definite has been settled regarding the visit of the champion Dan Patch to Auckland to endeavour to establish a mile record of 2.8 at the Auckland Trotting Club’s meeting for the £5OO pursue offered by the Club. It is to be hoped that the beautiful son of Roithchild will again be brought to Auckland.

The 50.000-acre ranch of J. B. Haggin. near Sacramento, California, has been sold. The price is reported at £400,000. This ranch has been the home of the largest horse-breed-ing establishment of California. As recently as 1905 there were- 600 brood mares and thirty thoroughbred stallions on the ranch, and at one time between 300 and 400 trotting mares were kept there. The ranch is being subdivided into small farms, to be resold.

C. J. Hamlin is quoted as once saying “that to find out how fast a trotter or pacer can go a mile, multiply his best time for a quarter by four, and add six to the result.”

On the first day of the Forbury meeting one of the riders on a backmarker caught a horse well out in the handicap and remarked to the rider, “If I had a whip I could win.” “Take it,” said the rider of the horse, “Wait a minute,” replied the scratch horse’s rider. He then shot past and said, “Give it to me,” “Wish I could oblige, but I cannot catch you now.” was the final reply. In the last race of the meeting a rider going at a great pace called to another just in front of him, “Lend me your whip!” This was done and enabled him to get into a place in the race. The favour was appreciated after coming into the paddock, as both are accomplished horsemen.

The matter of an additional trotting totalisator permit for Southland —one only being available at the present time—was widely discussed in Dunedin last week among a representative gathering of light harness enthusiasts from many parts of the Dominion, and the opinion was generally expressed that rile Racing Commission would see matters in a favourable light. The speed and cleverness displayed by a number of Southern horses on the first, day of the Forbury Park T.C. fixture undoubtedly helped to further the claims of this province regarding permits.

The death of the American trotting horse, Star Pointer, lmin. 59% sec., at Columbia, Tenn., in January marks the passing of the first .2min. light harness horse. It was on August 28th, 18 97. at Readville, that Star Pointer acomplished what was considered impossible by a great many people by pacing a mile in lmin. 79%5ec., thus demolishing the arguments of those who essayed that it was impossible for a horse to pace in two minutes or better. He was twenty one years old at the time of his death, having been foaled in 1889, and was bred by Col. H. P. Pointer, Spring Hill, Tenn. After he became prominent Star Pointer was sold at public auction on three occasions.

The Ladies’ Bracelet at New Brighton was one of the worst races seen on a Canterbury track for many a day, says a Southern writer. The pace set by Irvy Woodburn and Provocation in the early stages quite disorganised the field, with the result that the majority of the competitors were in trouble almost from the start. It is safe to say that quite three furlongs divided the first and last horses at the finish. [This is a common occurrence in Auckland.]

An American exchange states that the best prospect in sight in the State oi California for a 2.6 crocter nex. season is the handsome trotting stallion Dr. Lecco, who this year took a record of 2.11% in a winning race at San Joe. This colt has been repeatedly timed miles in 2.10, with the last half in 1.3. He is by Lecco out of Bessie M’Kinney. Ac the Allendale Stock Farm’s sale on March 9, two half-brothers to Dr. Lecco, 2.11%, were to be sold. One is che three-year-old colt Direct Voyage, by Bon Voyage, three years, 2.12%, and the o.her is M'Kinney Bells, a handsome yearling colt by Abbey Bells. Bessie M’Kinney is now owned by the Allendale Stock Farm, and her breeding is about as good as anything in the books. She is by the great sire M'Kinney (sire of twenty-three performers wLh records better than 2.10), out of Steinwinder, the dam of several god performers, including the world’s ex-champion four-year-old trotter Directum, 2.5%, a record that stood from 18 93 to the last racing season, when it was lowered by the four-year-old filly Joan co 2.4%. Joan is a grand-daughter of Directum, 2.5%.

In America, says the “Sydney Mail,” the horse who could not see out three one mile heats in the afternoon—more often rc is five or six—■would not be worth a two-penny dump as a racehorse, and it is the same blood we are now racing on our tracks in Australia. However, it cannot be said we in Australia are doing much co improve, or even to keep up, the standard of the breed as it came to us from America. New Zealand, however, is doing its best to put stamina into the horses racing on its courses, as all the big money races are over a distance of two miles, but a race over a two miles course in Sydney is a memory of the past, almost too far back for the present generation of men to remember.

At the New South Wales Trotting Club’s meeting on February 17 Ribbonvale, by Ribbonwood—Daisy, won the Trial Handicap, and Chesterfield, another Ribbonwood horse from a Lord Derby, jun., mare, appropriated the Epping Handicap after running a dead heat with Valour.

A Sydney correspondent of the “Horseman,” an American publication, has been entertaining its readers with some stories concerning how things used to be done at Epping. He writes:—“ln the cld days of the Epping course the programme was a mixed one of galloping ponies and trotters, and funny stories of events that occurred there could be found to 'fill a book. On one occasion a horse was rung in from Tasmania He came across with a short rat tail. This was shorn off and a flowing tail was fixed on to the stump with a spring. I may state that the racing was then done under the electric light. The rung-in one, which was in saddle, was leading by a number of lengths the first time round, when the crowd commenced to howl and shriek with laughter, and his rider, looking round to see if the tail was following all right, was horrified to see the spring had slipped and the flowing tail was hanging at the extreme end of the shaved stump. The rider did not wait to be asked any questions, but rode right out of the gate for home. On another occasion some boys with catapults were hidden in some bushes on some rocks overlooking the course, and peppered the favourite with swan shot each time he came round. Needless to say the perpetrators of the joke landing the stake with their horse.”

The pony Wilkie put up a sterlingperformance in winning the Dunedin Trotting (Cup, and pacing his tWj'o miles in 4min. 39sec. The Kentucky Wilkes gelding had to pass eight horses, and that fact accentuated the merit of his performance. Wilkie came out again in the Grandstand Handicap, in -which he was penalised 2sec. behind scratch. He came up a shade too soon for his starting bell, and on his driver being warned the horse had to be stopped in order to prevent, him going over the mark. Wilkie was thus unfortunate in not getting so well away as some of the others, as it must have added close on two more seconds to his handicap. On getting away Wilkie quickly struck into his gait, and after being patiently handled by E. M’Kewen got within striking distance of King Lynn at the beginning of the last quarter. Once in the straight, Wilkie made a bold bid, but King Lynn kept him at

bay and won by about two lengths. Wilkie must have stepped about a 2.13 gait to get close to King Lynn, and his performance stamps him as the best pony ever seen in Australasia. In all his races Wilkie was handled in a masterly manner by E. M’Kewen, who' clearly takes rank as one of our most capable horsemen, as well as being second to none in the saddle.