GENERAL NOTES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1247, 12 March 1914, Page 17

GENERAL NOTES.

Nominations for the Auckland Trotting Club’s autumn meeting are due on March 20th.

The Auckland Trotting Club is out with a splendid programme of events to be run for at their autumn meeting, the two chief races being worth £250 each.

In next week’s issue a series of photographs taken at the Poverty Bay

Trotting Club’s annual meeting will be reproduced, it having been found impossible to insert the pictures this week owing to pressure on space.

During the course of the Poverty Bay Trotting Club’s annual gathering the horses Bravo, Lord Dexter and Count Warwick were offered for sale. All three were passed in, the offers being 35gns., 25gns., and 55gns., respectively.

In the Ladies’ Bracelet Handicap (1% miles) at the Poverty Bay Trotting Club’s second annual gathering on Thursday, Makauri Lass, starting from scratch, finished second to Countess Grey (25sec). Makauri Lass’ time was 4m. 425., and her owner, Mr. A. T. Webb, thus secured the Hutchinson Cup for the locallybred horse doing the fastest time for the second year in succession.

Harness racing thrives in Austria Germany,, Italy, and Russia, and in all of these countries they have handicap systems which bring the horses closer together at the finish of the contest. This . scheme is something like this. Any horse that won not more than £lOO during 1913 shall be allowed four seconds in 1914; winners of £2OO or less, three seconds; £3OO or less, two seconds; £4OO or

less, one second. In Russia the horses race in classes governed by the money won. For instance, a horse rs in a certain class until he has won £2OO, or whatever the arbitrary amount is. He moves up to the next division and on as he wins, so that the horses have about the same ability.