TURF TOPICS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1293, 4 February 1915, Page 9

TURF TOPICS.

The Sandown Plate was won by Di Gama on Saturday by half a head.

Speedy Meg was a recent winner amongst the 14.1. ponies at the Ascot (Sydney) meeting. Pavlova won the Trial Plate at Trentham just twelve months before she won the Wellington Cup.

Daytime won a race at Trentham twelve months ago and the Disposal Stakes this year.

B. Deeley had riding engagements at Gisborne which he had to keep, and so could not remain over the Takapuna meeting.

A Gluten horse that looks like beinguseful is the chestnut gelding Goldmount, four years old. He has a bit of size about him and is shapely.

The Otamatea meeting takes place on Friday, and a steamer takes intending visitors from Helensville on Thursday morning, returning after the races.

Mr. H. Hayr, junr., who was operated upon for appendicitis after the Whangarei meeting, is making good progress, and will soon be about again.

Trainer Emmet Pope is still in the hospital, but is on the improve. T. Searle is looking after his horses, including the winner of the Orewa Hurdles, Cloudy Dawn.

J. Buchanan had to journey to Gisborne for the meeting commencing there this week, and had to forego mounts for the second day at Takapuna.

J. Sceats as long back as 1894 won the Takapuna Cup on Antares and the Stewards’ Handicap on Lillie. Until Conquest won on Bedford and Toreador the same double bad not been won bv one horseman since.

Embers, a five-year-old half-brother to the Takapuna Cup winner Bedford, ran in the Maiden Plate at Takapuna. So far the Campfire gelding has not set the Waitemata on fire, but is a useful-looking sort all the same. When Mr. J. D. Kemp’s Plenipotent came back to the paddock after the Maiden Plate at Takapuna it was seen that the Powerful gelding was cut on one of his hind legs through being galloped on. The skin was torn down above the hind fetlock. Bedford’s was the lowest weight carried to victory in the Takapuna Cup since Bully won six years ago. He is the first three-year-old to win since Master Delaval scored ten years ago with the same impost.

Mr. Harry Hayr, jun., is fast approaching recovery, and will be back home from hospital quarters again in a few days.

Decorate won the Ascot (N.S.W.) Handicap, one mile one furlong and 50 yards, by six lengths, on the 20th, coming right away at the business end.

Goldcatcher (Gluten — Grozette), which showed a fair dash of pace on the tracks prior to the Shore meeting, was made the medium of a fair gamble in the Ferry Handicap, but is still very green and will want time.

Mr. R. Wynyard was on hand attending to his duties at the Takapuna meeting, but his ankle, which was poisoned over a month ago, is not quite right, and the genial Robert, like some of the gee gees which are feeling the ground, was going a bit short. His friends were pleased to see him in his accustomed place.

Di Gama has a happy knack of getting his head in front at the finish of his races. He has had a very long run of victories, all, or nearly all, narrow margin ones. With 8.11 he was well treated at the Taranaki meeting, or else the horses he keeps meeting on the other side of the Tasman Sea cannot be first-class.

The Takapuna Jockey Club’s double, Takapuna Cup and Stewards’ Handicap, has been the medium of speculation for some years, but no one horseman has ridden the winners ot the two races within the past seventeen years, and possible’ longer, until J. Conquest accomplished the performance on Saturday. That horseman has won die Takapuna Cup three years in succession, Jolie Fille, Tiresome and Bedford being the trio.

In the preliminary gallop for the Takapuna Cup nothing pleased the onlookers better than the eventual winner, Bedford, the bright little chestnut bounding along revelling in his work. The Bunyan colt had the race won some distance from home. Mr. Frank Marshall, the owner and breeder of the winner, was present to see the son of Bunyan—Miss Dix win his first cup. The Morrinsville sportsman came in for a lot of handshaking after the event.

Even five races provide a good afternoon’s entertainment, as was evidenced at Takapuna on Saturday, and that the sinews of war were present in the shape of money the investments on the totalisators, as they reached the sum of <£23,678, give proof. After paying the Government tax and cost of working the machines, the balance of the money received from this source would pay the stakes.

Probably never before in the history of horse racing in Auckland had there been seven successive days’ racing as there was tins summer season. There was an abundance of money at both Ellerslie and Alexandra Park at the combined functions. Over a quarter of a million pounds was the turnover, which found its way back into ihe pockets of horseowners and the speculative public, less 10 per cent, and fractions. The public purse lias been heavily taxed with the European war, but there was no shrinkage in the funds that keep the racinggame going. Auckland’s experience has been the same as in nearly all parts of the Dominion during the festive season.