THE CLUBMAN

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1297, 4 March 1915, Page 6

THE CLUBMAN

A few more country meetings in the Auckland province have yet to be decided before those on the Racing Calendar come to an end. So far success has attended nearly all totalisator and non-totalisator meetings alike, with one or two exceptions. There is no reason why they should not have been more successful still. If the clubs will work in association, each studying the interest of their neighbours a little more, they will be best conserving their own. The Dates Committee of the Racing Conference are left to decide the applications of clubs, but the gentlemen who act have not always the knowledge of the localities, and though they do their best they sometimes permit of meetings coming too close together. Rotorua and Te Kuiti furnish an instance of this. Rotorua works so as to be in touch with the Bowling Carnival, and cannot well alter the date upon which its race meeting is held. Te Kuiti should leave longer than two days between. It would be good policy to have the handicaps for the Te Kuiti meeting declared on the day following the Rotorua meeting, and the weights for the South Auckland meeting on the Monday following the Te Kuiti meeting, instead of getting out the weights for all three meetings about the same time. Fortunately, as things have turned out, each of the meetings were brought off successfully financially, but there are other things to be considered in the interests of the sport and the interests of horse owners should come first. At Te Kuiti there were fixed penalties for winners after the appearance of the weights. Winners at Rotorua were in evidence again at Te Kuiti and again at South Auckland, where re-handicap-ping had been provided for. On the form shown at both meetings and also at Taranaki a number of winners had to be dealt with. The result of this was to alter the complexion of things very materially —some winners were raised too much, some too little, and others not at all. Raising the weights on some of the stake-getters meant putting them out of court with horses they had not met since the Takapuna meeting. It would have been much more satisfactory to th emain body of owners had the weights been got out after each meeting. As it was there was not much satisfaction excepting for a lucky few. The handicapper for all four days of racing could not have been too well pleased with the position in which he was placed.

In this connection it should be stated that our remarks do not apply to these particular clubs alone. The object, of handicapping is to give each horse nominated a chance, if it is possible to do so. The object is, however, often lost sight of in a desire on the part of handicappers to get to the post the best of the horses and those that carry most money. It is almost invariably the case that it is a very difficult matter to get the horses together because of the good class of some and the mediocre or inferior class of others. The handicapper does his best, but soon finds himself in a tangle when re-handicapping the winners has to be done. It was the same recently in another part of this Island at Christmas time. Winners at the Manawatu and Wairarapa and other meetings held at that time had to be re-handicapped for the Marton meeting. The result of this did not conduce to the success of that meeiing. It had the opposite effect. Te Kuiti might easily have suffered veiy much through the weights coming out before the Rotorua meeting, and South Auckland in the same way might have been considerably interf erred' with through the racing at both. Winners at Taranaki and at the Rotorua and Te Kuiti meetings were re-handi-capped there. There is little or no pre-post betting over these country meetings, and in these days, when speculation is supposed to be confined to the totalisator only, there is no urgency for getting the weights Gut a long time ahead. There are strong reasons against getting them put before other meetings at which horses are taking part are over. This has •been proved so often by results. The weights, say, for the A.R.C. Easter and St. George’s Handicap, run over

a mile and a mile and a-half, with a day intervening, might be got out together, and any winners on the opening day could be re-handicapped not exceeding a stated weight at the discretion of the handicapper for the larger second day event. Overnight handicapping, and particularly for races growing so substantial in value, is not a system to be extensively encouraged, though it cannot be alto gether done without. For a meeting like the Auckland Racing Club Easter fixture, owners who have to bring their horses long distances would like to know the weights for the St. George’s Handicap, as well as for the Easter Handicap, before setting out from home quarters. Under existing conditions the handicapping is based on form shown on the opening day over shorter distances.

The weights for the chief handicaps at the spring meeting of the Australian Jockey Club run on the first and second days come out simultaneously, and horses are prepared accordingly for some time ahead. The Epsom Handicap is run over a mile, the

Metropolitan Handicap over a mile and a half. Horses compete in both, but are prepared specially for the d.fferent distances. As a matter of fact, no horse has won both. The tendency in getting out the handicaps overnight for such important races is to encourage owners to start their horses in first day events and run them with a view to getting them in well on the second day. There are so many Easter meetings on at the same time in New Zealand, unfortunately, that the best horses cannot be got together at one time. Some are sent North and some to the South Island for the bigger meetings, and some are sent to compete for the smaller stakes at the minor meetings. It is so in the spring, when important meetings are in progress at Ellerslie and at Riccarton at the same time, and the Christmas and New Year meetings of clubs also clash. At such times the best horses are scattered all over the country. This is likely to continue, as good prize money is available at so many meetings held in different parts of the Dominion at one time. Meetings that do not clash, such as the Wellington ones, should, in the course of time, be the best patronised by the better class of horses. The best from all parts North and South can be taken to Trentham, and ..will be taken there for the already good prize money which is sure to be increased as time wears on. That is one advantage that the Wellington Racing Club has over clubs which race on holiday dates, on which so many clubs hold their meet-

ings. The weight-for-age races the Wellington Racing Club have been introducing are in the right direction to bring the best of the horses we have together, and we are told that another one may appear on the programme at the Club’s next meeting. There is already the Trentham Gold Cup at weight for age, over two miles. One over a mile at weight for age between Warstep, Merry Roe, Autumnus, Emperador, Chortle, Pavlova, First Glance, Downham, Indigo, Jack Delaval, Ventura and a few more would be 'worth going a long way to witness.

The Auckland Racing Club have reason to be highly pleased with the nominations received for the Easter Hnadicap, the chief mile race held by the Club at their approaching autumn meeting. They number fortysix, and the best horses we have in the Dominion, with a few exceptions, are included in the list. Mr. Morse has ample time to put in to a cons’deration of what the horses should be weighted at, and as the form of pretty well every horse engaged has

been recent, and they have all been performers during the present season, we should expect a good all-round adjustment, and let us hope a capital response from owners for that particular event. The nominations for the St. George Handicap, to be run on the second day, were not expected to be so large, because of the increased distance, and they fall short probably of anticipations. The material is there, however, and on the night after the first day’s racing Mr. Morse will have to bring out the weights for this important stake. There are some horses engaged that have proved their staying qualifications in the past, and there is reason to believe that some will develop form over a distance as time wears on. Looking at the nominations for the jumping events as well, it would appear that a good many owners have their thoughts concentrated on the Auckland meeting, and that while some are sure to go elsewhere for their Easter racing Auckland can, as in the past, count upon a lot of liberal outside support, and a full share of it from owners in this Island and possibly some from Southern owners, whose horses have been freely nominated. Canterbury meetings have their attractions, and the substantial prizes offered for competition at Riccarton will no doubt lead to a distribution of the horses in the various stables, and particularly from those that shelter a good many representatives. North Island stables patronise the Canterbury J.C. very liberally. We shall have to wait a week longer for the weights for the

two chief handicaps of the Southern meeting.

Australian racing cont nues to have much interest for New Zealanders, and the Australian Jockey Club’s autumn meeting, which commenced on Saturday, would have been none the less so than others, were it not that students and followers of the form of horses in which the Dominion has an interest have so much engaging their attention near home in so many ways. The St. Leger success of Mr. E. J. Watt’s Mountain Knight would be much appreciated, not only because the owner is a New Zealander, but because in the pedigree of Mountain Knight there is the blood of horses with the breeding of which the Dominion is to some extent identified. Naxbery, the runner-up, it may be mentioned, is a son of Positano from the New Zealand-bred mare Indian Queen, by Stepniak, and the filly Carlita, who ran third, was bred in Canterbury by Mr. J. B. Reid, and is by imported Charlemagne 11. from Couronne. The race had a big smack of New Zealand about it. The Essenden Stakes was

interesting from the fact that the New Zealand-bred Di Gama, though of English parents, ran a great race against the imported horse Land o’ Song, who is said to have cost, his owner 4000 guineas in the Old Land, and has pre viously demonstrated that he is a good one. When we find a bargain of the sale ring such as Di Gama—and he is not the first by many—coming to the front time after time, there is lef<. something to reflect over. Di Gama is a good advertisement for h's parents, and the limestone country on which he was produced. The brothers J. F. and J. B. Re d will continue to derive pleasure at the achievements of Di Gama and Carlita, and Mr. E. J. Watt, who owns Mountain Knight, will have further reason to be pleased with having gone in for a racing stable or two in Australia, as his luck continues good. It may be mentioned that Mr. Watt bred and owned Indian Queen, the dam of Naxbery and so many good horses. Blague’s success in the Newmarket Handicap interests us, too, as the sire of that good horse Bobadil is from She, a full-sister to Stepniak and to Stepfeldt, the dam of Reputation, whose blood enters into the pedigrees of so many important winners, as Warstep, Pavlova, Bunyan, Indigo, Tinopai and many more of recent date bear evidence. The Musket blood comes out in the pedigrees of other winners and placed horses at the meeting. The Pines Hurdles fell to Dinizulu, by Carbinier, and the concluding event, the Brunswick Stakes, to Winnipeg, by Royal Artillery.