SENSATIONAL HURDLE RACING IN GERMANY.
The “Berliner Tageblatt” devotes two columns to the recent re-opening of the Karlshorst course for hurdle racing hi Germany. The “Tageblatt” leads off with an excellent resume of the reasons why, in the interests of the breeding industry, hurdle racing should take place. Emphasis is laid on the inroads which idle studs made on the capital of the proprietors, and there is a somewhat plaintive note in the reflection that “also they eat oats unless they, too, are put on breadcard rations, and oats cost money, more money than in times of peace.” The programme was not on the lines of peace time meetings, for the gentlemen riders’ events, for which Karlshorst has ever been noted, were missing—an obvious effect of the war, the officers who would have supplied the bulk of the riders being at the front. The day was not without its mishaps. No fewer than 21 horses fell, two jockeys were brought back senseless, and three horses had to be shot, or, to quote the ponderous expression of the “Tageblatt” writer, “went to slumber in the eternal Pferdehimmel (horse-h-eaven).” After 'the first race the course rather resembled a battlefield than the scene of a peaceful hurdle race. Wherever one looked, fallen or riderless horses were to be seen galloping at random, while dismounted jockeys strove to regain their mounts. The unfortunate jockey Masson, whose mount, Gardenia, had come down with a broken neck at the last hurdle, sustained very severe concuss;on of the bra’n. These scenes were repeated at all the races in which young horses took part, and claimed two further victims, Fiskalische in the third, and Hochdinck in the sixth race.
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New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1342, 13 January 1916, Page 12
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281SENSATIONAL HURDLE RACING IN GERMANY. New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1342, 13 January 1916, Page 12
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