THE CLUBMAN

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1346, 10 February 1916, Page 10

THE CLUBMAN

An Australian paper informs us briefly of the tact that an old-time jockey there celebrated a birthday last month. This was Joe Carter, who, according to the records of his career, served his apprenticeship at Newmarket, and saw the famous horses The Flying Dutchman and Voltigeur racing before he came to Victoria. He is now 83 years of age. As he was riding in 1854 in Melbourne and won the V.R.C. Derby as long oack as 1856 on Mr. Hector Norman Smison’s Flying Doe, and as his memory of old-time events is good, from time to time he has provided good “copy” for the younger generation. He used to do his share of wasting, but led an abstemious life, and holds mementoes from some of the dead and gone employers for whom he rode. An oil painting of Flyrng Doe, with himself in saddle, from that filly’s owner, and a goldmounted whip from Mr. Green, a former employer, bearing the inscription “For honesty, integrity and ability,” are amongst the treasured ones. The records go to show that Cartel rode many winners of leading races in Australia, covering a period of about twenty years. The late James Monaghan was the last of his contemporaries who rode against him in Flying Doe’s Derby. Carter remembers well Bob Fleming, after whom the Flemington racecourse was named.

A fortnight ago it was stated in our Topics column that Desert Gold had still to equal the number of wins at two and three years old registered by Menschikoff. It so happened that at the t.me the paragraph appeared Desert Gold had, by her latest win, really reached the number of Menschikoff’s record of fifteen successes. Menschikoff ran nineteen times altogether, fifteen times at two years old, and had eleven wins, and was twice bracketed with Cruciform, his stable companion, when she won at that age. Desert Gold ran twelve times at two years old and had six wins. Her nine wins at three years old without a break probably constitute a record for a three-year-old filly in New Zealand; they certainly do in important races. Cruciform won ten races at that age, ran second to Menschikoff and to Royal Artillery, in the C.J.C. Derby and Jubilee Cup respectively, and when not herself—just as Desert Gold happened to be when Arran beat her last autumn —Canniel Chiel defeated her. Her only other defeat by anything outside the stable was when she was second, with 181 b. worse than we ght-for-age terms, behind Porirua in the North Island Challenge Stakes.

Desert Gold has not run against any three-year-olds as good as Cruciform, Menschikoff, or Royal Art.llery. Cruciform had some handicap achievements at that age that must not be forgotten. Her A.R.C. Railway Handicap win was at least creditable, but her C.J.C. Great Easter Handicap win with 9.9, with two and a half lengths to spare, giving away from 191 b. to 421 b. to her nine opponents, was a herculean task which we hardly think Mr. T. H. Lowry would ask Desert Gold to try and emulate in these days, when there are ever so many more valuable races. When making comparisons between cracks of various ages, Cruciform’s performance, however, is one that cannot be passed over. We wish to assess Desert Gold’s performances at their full value. There is no alloy in our assay. No one appreciates a good racehorse better, but we do not doubt but that Cruciform could have just as easily defeated each of the three-year-olds that Desert Gold has beaten as she did, and that on the same tracks, as perfect on the days as they were and as fast, she also could have made time records. Nones is admittedly tne best three-year-old filly that Desert Gold has beaten, and Eligible and Snub the best of the same age outside her own sex, and perhaps Eligible is the best of her age that she has been pitted against. Can anyone compare Nones to Cruciform, or Eligible and Snub to Menschikoff and Royal Artillery, or to Nonette, the three-year-olds of their year?

Desert Gold had Nones behind her each time they met, and showed consistent form to build arguments upon. Amongst those she has defeated the best mares are Warstep, First Glance and Merry Roe, and it is open to question whether she met any one of these really at the top of form. Chortle is the best of the older geldings she has had behind her. Perhaps some of these cracks will meet her again in some of the important races set aside for the best at weight-foi-age, and in which the three-year olds are held to have all the best of the figures. A short respite should see Desert Gold come back in great form to complete her three-year-old engagements. If there are to be any engagements made for her outside the classic races which she is to take part in—and we presume that one or two of the weight-for-age races may be included in the programme—it will certainly be interesting should she continue to add to her well won wreath of laurels. With other useful horses in his stable, Mr. Lowry is in a position to choose her races for her, but whether he will elect to run her for those in which no penalties figure, and over the longer distances, or to take on the races over shorter courses, and in which maximum penalties have been earned, is what we must await. It is stated that Desert Gold will not appear again before the autumn meeting of the Wellington Racing Club.

The five-furlong course at Ellerslie, from the top of the rising ground below the secretary’s house, is probably the fastest over that distance in New Zealand —that is, of courses with anything like a bend of similar angle in it. Faster still would be the first 'five furlongs from the mile post near Greenlane to the three-furlong post. There is a big dip and a rise of some feet before reaching the old five-fur-long post. Kitty Bellairs ran the firstmentioned five-furlong course in Imin. from a barrier rise, and that performance has yet to be beaten on the course. The only Dominion record held at Ellerslie is that of black Bobrikoff over the mile, which he covered in Imin. 38 4-ssec. Nones, whom no one places on the same plane as Bobrikoff, equalled this at Trentham. The big black Finland gelding was always at a disadvantage, or there is no telling what he might have accomplished on a track as perfect as Desert Gold met with on December 27th last at Ellerslie, or that on which Nones put up her mile go at Trentham last month. A muscular trouble was always present in Bobrikoff’s case. He almost invariably took longer to run his first furlong than most brilliant horses do, and yet when fairly going he could put in some tellng strides.

Some first-class geldings have figured in New Zealand, and there have been some great ones in Australia, but probably none better than Bobrikoff, whose great trouble was his occasional infirmity, which was believed to be a rheumatic one. At a mile — or, indeed, at any distance—Mr. Lowry’s black would not, however, have matched, in our opinion, a horse like Achilles; and that other of New Zealand’s good black horses Advance was one that could go fast and stay and carry weight, but though each have left some very useful representatives neither have left anything so good as themselves. Their sires were good performers, too. Medallion was very brilTant, and left brilliant sons, and also daughters, some of which in turn have left excellent performers. We remember Vanguard as a good performer when at his best, and he got some speedy ones and a few stayers, with limited opportunities. Probably no son of Traducer —and that sire left no end of good ones —would have achieved such distinction had the way to treat his foals —many of which died son after birth through megrims—been understood. Vanguard took a good deal after his great sire and was a rare bred one, and no Traducer horse left one quite so good as Advance in the colonies.

Horses left entire do not as a rule

run on season after season so brilliantly and generously as did Advance and Achilles. Geldings and mares race longer. Advance ran wonderfully well in the autumn of his three-year-old career, and put up some sterling performances under weight then, and later on, after racing in Australia

and creating a surprise amongst students of form by the way he shaped at distances from six furlongs on to two miles, and after being troubled with a leg, he won the Wellington Cup in great style, carrying 10.4, in the then record time of 2min. 34sec. A bit more weight would not have stopped him. Achilles put up a lot cf good weight-carrying performances, too, and his record is a very fine one for a horse that had no classic engagements made for him as a yearling. Waiuku was a surprising horse, too; how good was never, perhaps, fully elucidated, but he once had Multiform’s rider (Derrett) thinking. This was in the Canterbury Cun. but both were indolent unt ; l specially called upon, and were very much alike in temperament. It was Multiform’s breeding that asserted itself that day when it came to business.

Royal Artillery’s brilliancy and h’s private achievements rather than his public ones placed him on a high pedestal. Nonette was a solid colt, very little indeed below top standard, and much more was exacted from him than some owners would have asked. Menschikoff was extremely brilliant, and it would have taken a champion when he was three years old to have

beaten him at weight for age in the

spring and summer of his year over a mile to a mile and a-quarter, or beyond if he could have been galloped as soundly as some of his age, but he occasionally knocked one of his joints, as he went very close in front. That was a weakness this brilliant colt possessed. He was rarely beaten off the mark, and used to have his opponents “scratching” in the first furlong. In more recent years Boniform was a great galloper, who did his work without apparently putting any special effort forward. He had a longreaching stride, and won all his races, and looked to be going only half-pace to do so. Unfortunately he went wrong. Noctuiform was a first-class three-year-old, who, like others of the same family, would probaly have been better could he have had an easier time while growing. Multiform, his sire, was an out and out good colt, who never showed better in private than in public, as some horses do. The late Mr. Stead considered Royal Artillery his superior, but the lastnamed was hard to train.

We could go on writing for days about the bygone cracks of the last forty years, and longer, from the time of Manuka, whom we never saw, and, of others of a little later date. In proportion to the actual number of thoroughbreds raised, we all know that the Dominion has produced a very good percentage of topnotchers. St. Hippo was a great three-year-old, and Seahorse came within the same category when staying was in question, but St. Hippo proved very brilliant, too, later on, after accomplishing a three-year-old feat in the Auckland Cup that still stands as a weightcarrying long distance effort for one of that age. Wairiki’s name cannot be left out when talking of weightcarrying and staying form, but he was seen at his best when four years old, and 9.8 was the impost that he carred so gallantly in the Auckland Cun at that age. Maxim showed himself to be good here and in Australia, and he was tried to be better than Lochiel, another good one foaled in the Dominion, just prior to that good horse bringing about the downfall of quite a number of members of the New Zea!rnd ring.

Fillies and mares this season have been largely monopolising the attention of racegoers by their deeds, especially those from three years upwards, and it would perhaps have interested readers of these columns if we had had more to say about the good ones of the sex that have gained distinction in New Zealand from time to time. That will do later. Warsten. who limped off the track after breaking down in the Auckland Cup. was one with a fine record that should not soon be forgotten. Lurline. with fifteen out of thirty-two races to her credit, when the minimum we’’ght was sst. 71b., and she was often set severe tasks: Calumny. Merganser. Ladv Zetland, Florr’e. and plenty of others of later date—Ladv Medallist for one — have represented fine form at various stages of their careers. Even as late as Saturday, when the Taranaki Cun weights were issued, we were confronted with the fact that Merry Roe. who has undoubtedly run some good races at intervals in her career, was handicapped at 10.4, a weight not one of her sex ever succeeded in winning an important middle distance handicap race under in the Dominion. Few indeed have been asked, such a question in or out of the Dominion. Carlita’s Australian Cun weight. 9.8, is another noser, remembering the distance extends a mile further.