BAD STARTING IN ENGLAND.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1241, 29 January 1914, Page 11

BAD STARTING IN ENGLAND.

The last racing/.season in England was noted for bad starts. - Australians who have seen a good deal of racing in England, according to “Rippledin” in. the. “Australasian,”, invariably say the main cause of the trouble is the. starter. He is too' '“lady-like”' in' his

methods, and has no control of the jockeys. Mr. Adison, who had a good deal to do with the adoption of the gate in England, wrote at the end of the racing season:—“We have ended the season amid a clamour about bad starts, and certainly there have been a good many at Newmarket during the October and Houghton meetings; but, curiously enough, critics seldom regard such happenings in proportion or perspective. There may be fifty good starts unrecorded, whereas one bad one leaps into fame. Again, it does not seem, even now, to be sufficiently understood that the personal equation and not the machine is to blame for any trouble. No one, so far as I am aware, ever complains of the starting in Ireland; nor have I heard of Mr. Joe Marsh being responsible for any conspicuous failures. Mr. Coventry himself starts vastly better than he did in the early days of the gate, but whatever faults may be found with individual starts the fact that successful starting is not only possible, but comparatively easy, remains, and all the talk about walk-ing-up starts —unless for long-distance races —is nonsense. Light boys and

apprentices cannot walk their horses up without continual breaking of the tapes. Some people write as if they know that walking up is possible, but I have seen it tried at Palermo, in the Argentine, where the starters have a free hand. I have seen them get fields away from a walk-up for the longer distances, but for the sprint races never, and not because they have not tried, but because jockeys are not v.nifoi inly able to restrain their horses, even with such bits as they use in that country. If I were asked my advice as to the starting difficulty, 1 should say, ‘Give Mr. Joe Marsh some more meetings,’ by which I simply mean that the individual starter is the essential element of success.”