TURF TOPICS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1364, 15 June 1916, Page 10

TURF TOPICS.

Flingot will be thirteen years old next foaling. * * * * What price El Gallo for the two Northerns of 1917? • • • • Gladful’s older brother Kirkby won a steeplechase at Otaki. ***:!: J. H. Prosser’s Kukri took another toll at Otaki. *«*::: Spalpeen has covered himself with glory as a sire of jumpers. * * * • Mr. T. H. Lowry and Mrs. Lowry have left on a trip to America. * * * * J. O’Shea has ridden 73 winners this season, Emerson 62 and Deeley 57. * * * * Chortle has been nominated for the Epsom and Sydney Cup handicaps. •** * * Melbourne Cup entries show an increase of eight over last year. * * The Cobham Stud is to be disposed of at auction m July 26th. * * * * Only two first favourites won at the Dunedin Jockey Club’s meeting. * * * * The imported Cyklon won the Adelaide Birthday Cup of 1500sovs. * * * * The two Manson brothers propose visiting Australia next month, and may ride there.

After being sold at auction for llgns., Hohungatahi was resold for 20gns.

Small dividends were paid in the leading steeplechase events at Ellerslie.

Master Regel will be taken South this season, all going on the right wav with him.

Crib is voted the best of South Island hurdle horses at the present time.

The New Zealand Grand National Hurdle Race this year is to be run over about two and a-half miles.

Tarero has had four successive wins over obstacles, the last three over country.

Tarero, winner of the Winter Steeplechase on Wednesday of last week, was the smallest of the field.

Bluestone surely paid a small dividend when he won the Members’ Handicap in a field of 21 runners.

Sir Solo is now being talked of as a jumping proposition, and he may prove a payable' one, too.

Moneymaker, by Golden Knight from Fair View, a recent winner, is no relation to Pursefiller, by Lethe from Golden View.

The odds are against either El Gallo or Purse'filler being taken to Victoria for the Grand National meeting.

Crown Pearl might have been all the better for some hurdle racing experience at Ellerslie, but he was not asked to race.

Waimai, who is a son of Spalpeen, claims a mare by Cap-a-pie as his dam and a Derby mare as his granddam.

Mrs. T. H. Lowry, of -Hawke’s Bay, has given £5OO to the fund for. the relief of sailors of the lost British ships in the naval battle.

In England a tax is now levied on the admission fee charged to racecourses, as well as football matches, theatres, etc. * * Double backers —that is, the lucky ones —are credited with winning about £5OOO over El Gallo, and the right people got a good slice of the money. * ♦ * Hohungatahi has been placed in Albert Jackson’s hands at Ellerslie, but it is doubtful whether he will again win a decent stake. ❖ :|s * * Mollyhawk is cne of the many useful jumpers by Captain Webb, who was a loss to the country when he died. :k * T * Marconi should be an improved horse when next he strips, but it is evident he races best when fresh and when the going is not hard. The hunter Union Jack has gone into C. Jackson’s stables at Hawera, a patron having effected the purchase from Mr. H. Dingle. * * * * El Gallo was handicapped last year for the Australian Jockey Club’s Grand National Hurdles at 10.11 and for the Steeplechase at 11.2. & * ❖ * There has been a falling off of £13,750 in the totalisator returns of the Auckland Racing Club for the season. The previous year there was an increase of £32,328 over its predecessor.

Mr. and Mrs. Angus Gordon have received much sympathy at the loss of their son, which was announced last week in the cables.

R. Hall had not ridden over country for about ten years until the recent meeting at Ellerslie, when he was up on Heather Boy in his two engagements.

Those who remember St. Leger as a yearling would see a likeness in the Sands of the Orient colt sold at Greenlane last week on account of his importer, Mr. E. W. Alison, jun

J. O’Shea will be riding at Gisborne, and he and a number of Auckland horsemen were to leave on Tuesday for the meeting to be held there this week.

A southern writer says there is a popular belief that Rorke’s Drift will be put to hurdle racing, but he opines that the New Zealand Cup is a more likely proposition if the weights suit.

Naupata could not do himself justice at Ellerslie. He was sore behind when he started on the opening day, and though paid up for in the Great Northern Steeplechase declined his engagement on the day.

Arty Rae, who was riding amongst the welters at Ellerslie, and wasted to go to scale at 10.4 in the Hunters’ Hurdles, rode Uenuku at 6.11 when he won the Hawke’s Bay Cup.

In making Mr. W. J. Stratton, the retiring secretary, a life honorary member, the Hawke’s Bay Jockey Club conferred an honour on their official.

The people of Canterbury have started a subscription to assist dependants of those lost in the naval battle last week. Mr. A. Boyle, a wellknown sportsman, who has a son on the New Zealand, headed the list with £5OO, and £2OOO was got in one evening in the room where the meeting was held. Other provinces are doing well in the same connection.

El Gallo was handicapped at 12.12 for the A.R.C. Winter Steeplechase. If nominated he cannot receive more than 12.7 in the New Zealand Grand National, as that is the maximum.

It is a pity Immensity has again gone lame, as she was likely to play a conspicuous hand at meetings this winter, judging from her opening effort at Wanganui last month.

Entries for the A.J.C. Epsom Handicap show a decrease of thirty-five on those of last year, and for the Metropolitan Handicap there is also a substantial drop.

Colonel Soult has been accorded a nomination in the Epsom Handicap again this year, and his owners may have thoughts of sending him over the Tasman Sea again this spring.

Within a forty mile radius of Sydney seventeen imported horses have won races during the current season, and a number of others got in England and foaled in Australia have also been winners.

Mr. A. Robertson, the well-known studmaster and racing and trotting enthusiast, of Melbourne, was a through passenger by the Niagara, en route for the States of America and England.

After many failures Ballista added to his winning record in the Marlborough Hurdles at Flemington recently. Ballista, who won the Australian Hurdle Race at Caulfield in 1913, will be 11 years old next foaling.

The maximum weight in the New Zealand Grand National Steeplechase cannot under any circumstances exceed 12.7 this year. The penalties will be estimated on the weights horses are handicapped at.

Lady Elysian, in a field of fourteen, started favourite, dashed to the front at the distance, and won by four lengths. This was in the 14.1 Handicap at the Victoria Park meeting on June Ist.

On Monday, says the “Referee,” the stipendiary stewards concluded their inquiry into the running of Merrimax in the First Hurdle Race at the A.J.C. winter meeting. The explanation tendered by the trainer and rider was accepted.

New York is a half-brother to Cardiff, who was a fine fencer and commenced hurdle racing and ’chasing late in life, with some success, and ran on till he was in his sixteenth year, his death occurring a few months back in Southland.

There have been plenty of good horses by Birkenhead, but very few genuine stayers, and we do not look to Idealism to win over a long course ever fences in good company. He has been given a chance in the Napier Park Steeplechase.

The starting prices of horses in the weight-for-age races in Australia do not represent the odds that early backers got in at in some instances. Ulva’s Isle was quoted at 3 to 1 and Kaudos at 7 to 2, but 6 to 1 and 5 to 1 was what a New Zealander got about them respectively.

Mr. Selby, long-time huntsman, met with an accident in the field on Saturday when out with the Pakuranga Hounds through his horse, Mountain, a usually safe conveyance, coming down with him. Though somewhat shaken, Mr. Selby, who keeps pretty fit, was able to ride home.

In America Mr. John E. Madden’s famous Hamburg Place Stud at present has 235 brood mares on its 2240 acres of land. In 1915 the produce of the stud’s mares and stallions won 325 races, worth £58,965. During the past seven years the get of Humburg Place stallions have won the huge sum of £321,090.

R. Wootton is carrying out his idea of mating a few mares in England to Australian time, and then sending them out there. The sire chosen is Stornaway (Desmond — Sisterlike). When racing Stornaway was smart, the Gimcrack Stakes being among the events won by him

It is stated that Kirkby, who won the Otaki Steeplechase, and who is by Birkenhead from Gladisla, sister to Gladsome, was once sold for Is. 6d. by a former owner. We can remember a horse called Shilling v r ho was purchased for that sum from a pound winning a back race of small value.

Owing to the illness of Mr. E. Mitchelson, the club’s president, and the want of a quorum, a meeting could not be got of the committee of the Auckland ,R.C. until too late to adjourn the last day’s racing at Ellerslie after the news came through ■of the sinking of the Hampshire with Earl Kitchener and staff aboard.

Totalisator employees in Auckland, with promised assistance from employers, are establishing a fund to assist dependants of any of their number who have gone to the war or who are going. At a meeting on Friday the business was deciced upon, and officials appointed to arrange the details.

R. Percival is one of the Ellerslie boys at the front “somewhere in France,” and in a letter received during the week at the home of his old employer, E. J. Rae, he mentioned that he had seen quite a number of Aucklanders during his experiences, all glad to get away from Egypt to where there was something doing. C. Plodder, C. Macmanemin, and the two Adolphs were amongst the Ellerslieites mentioned.

Waimai had a half-brother racing sixteen years ago, called Turk, by Crescent, and he Avon the Hunt Club Hurdles at the Auckland Racing Club’s spring meeting in 1899, paying a dividend of £8 4s. E. J. Rae, who trains Waimai, had Turk for a few weeks before the event, and Mr. J. Comer, an amateur, rode him.

A case of particular interest to English jockeys was recently heard before the West Suffolk Appeal Tribunal. Leave to appeal from a decision granting a month’s exemption was given to Lancaster, a married jockey with two children. During the hearing of the case it was pointed out that if a jockey entered the army and put on weight his occupation and life’s work disappeared.

The “Thoroughbred Record” (Lexington, Ky.) says that the Metropolitan Turf Association, the strongest organisation of bookmakers ever in existence in U.S.A., has decided on dissolution. A resolution passed at a meeting held during the last week in March declared that, while the organisation was formed at a time when the laying of odds was lawful in the State of New York, such is not now the case in regard to the method then in vogue, and it was therefore considered desirable to dissolve the association, which once represented millions of dollars in its membership and had over £ 40,000 in its treasury.