TURF TOPICS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1379, 28 September 1916, Page 10

TURF TOPICS.

J. Buchanan did not remain for che second day of the Wanganui meeting.

Moulu may be made a jumper of next season. He has been tried to jump and has the gift.

Mr. George Morse has been reelected handicapper to the Taranaki Jockey Club.

The Wanganui Jockey Club had beautiful weather for their two days’ meeting last week.

The annual meeting of members of the Wellington Racing Club will be held on Friday next, September 29th.

The Auckland horses Worcester and Kaiwhakahaere were to run at the Horowhenua meeting before being brought north again.

A rumour that Bisogne was not quite himself recently was news to his owner, so Mr. Alexander informed a representative of this paper last week.

Horses trained by the Washdyke trainer S. Trilford won five races at the Ashburton meeting, while Aerial finished second in another race.

The Hawkesbury Race Club has decided to give the profits from its coming spring meeting to the War Chest Fund.

F. W. McCabe, who rode Troublesome to victory in the Adelaide Grand National Steeplechase, is now on his way to France.

Marton was probably the fittest horse amongst the jumpers at Wanganui, and the old ’un still has some go left in him.

Photographs do not bear out the report that Bjorneborg won the Wanganui Guineas by a length. The margin was very much shorter.

Mr. James Bull, of Hunterville, has purchased for his stud the Stepniak horse All Red from the Gossoon mare Madder, who herself and daughters have left so many good performers.

A larger and better all round collection of mares has never graced the Bushy Park, Wanganui, paddocks, and no paddocks are better grassed for their reception.

Rewipoto started the hottest favourite at the Wanganui meeting when he won the Marangai Handicap cn Saturday, in which there were only five starters.

In the Hierarch —Peace mare Chakwana, the Messrs. V. and E. Riddiford have a good one, who retains all her pace, as proved by her running at Wanganui.

Bonny Helen, who won the Higgie Handicap (formerly the Wanganui Stakes) last year, is now amongst the mares on a visit to Hallowmas at Bushy Park.

The ex-Victorian jockey F. Bullock is not meeting with much success in England this year. Up to July 15 he had only won six of the 103 races in which he had ridden. * * * * The imported horses Sunbury and Shepherd King are being spoken of in Melbourne in connection with the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups. They are trained by C. Wheeler at Caulfield.

After competing in the Okehu Handicap Hurdles, Harbour Light’s rider was fined for not riding his mount out. C. Jackson, his trainer, sent the horse home next morning.

Gang Awa ran two good races at Wanganui, when apparently a bit short of work. He just got home from the evergreen Bivouac, the aptlynamed son of Campfire, on Saturday last.

Mr. G. F. Moore, of Bushy Park, Wanganui, after being in camp for several weeks was laid up suffering from pleurisy, and was on sick leave last week, but hopes to get back to camp again very soon.

In the autumn Nones was beaten by the narrowest of margins at Wanganui in a record six furlongs for the course for one of her age, and on Saturday suffered a short head defeat in the mile and a-quarter race by Depredation.

H. Hickey, the well-known trainer, when giving a leg up on Cleft at Wanganui, had his cheek bumped by that horse’s head. Fortunately no bones were broken, though it was painful at the time.

The English-bred Panmure, now five years old, only wants a few races to fit him for a good race. He is a very fine horse now, and should be all right for sire purposes later on, when his turf career closes.

Falls on the flat at Wanganui meetings are not uncommon, but they are hard to account for. Three horses fell on the first day, Ararat in the Spring Handicap, and Abalone, and over him Dood, in the Durie Hack Handicap.

Metcalf, the English apprentice attached to G. Price’s stable, who came down on Abalone in the Durie Hack Handicap last Thursday, was taken to the Wanganui Hospital, and will be there a week or two in all probability, as he injured his back.

Peroneal, by Achilles, holds the record of 2min. 9 l-ssec. for the Wanganui Stakes since the race became a mile and a-quarter one. Lady Medallist registered 2min. lOsec. when she won, which is the same as Depredation just beat Nones in on Saturday.

Next year’s Irish Derby will be the gross value of £3500, and it will cost £5O to start. The winner’s share will be £3OOO. This year’s A.J.C. Derby will be worth at least £4500 to the winner, and the cost of starting is only £22, inclusive of the jockey’s losing fee.

According to a writer in the “Breeders’ Gazette” 750,000 horses and mules have been shipped from the United States to Europe since September, 1914. Twenty-two horses make a freight car load, so there have been 34,000 car loads, and each horse has travelled an average of 1000 miles by rail. The freight charges have amounted to £1,000,000.

The last jockey to win the Epsom and Metropolitan double was L. H. Hewitt, who was on Maximize and Solution in 1906. Subsequently Hewitt went to England, and later to Germany and Austria, where he was in receipt of some big retainers. Last year he returned to Australia, and the probabilities are he will again ride in New Zealand, where he first attained real prominence.

Splendid prices were realised at the bloodstock sales at Newmarket, England, early this month. Sixty-one yearlings realised 25,118 guineas. Fifteen from the Sledmere Stud averaged 921gns. A colt by Hunster (?) from Stolen Kiss was sold for 3000 guineas. Mr. Sanford, an American, bought the filly by Spearmint from Veneration 11. for 4000gns.

According to Australian advices the imported horse Redfern has been sent away again for another spell, and at earliest will not race again until the autumn. Redfern has only started once in Australia, and the odds now seem against Sir William Cooper getting a return of the large sum he paid for him. The last race won by the son of St. Denis was in July, 1914, and he is now five years old to Australian time.

Dood, who fell over Abalone when competing in the Durie Hack Handicap on the first day of the Wanganui meeting, looked exceptionally well. He was not hurt, and just got beaten out of second place in the Moutoa Hack Handicap on the second day when paying a big dividend. Antwerp, winner of the race, finished seventh in the Durie Hack Handicap, and possibly the fall interfered with him, for he won after a good race on Saturday, beating the topweight, Hylatus, who is proving a good purchase for his new owner, Mr. A. D. Webster. * * * *

Gaycium, one of the double winners at Wanganui, who also won at Marton, is by Gazeley (imp.), son of Grey Leg, from Cricium, a daughter of Phoebus Apollo and Cissy, sister to Trenton. Cricium was rather delicate and was bought cheaply by the writer for Mr. Gaine Carrington, of Gisborne, at the break-up of the Wellington Park Stud. Gaycium has become more solid this season than she was last, and is showing her breeding to be all right.

After the first day’s racing at Wanganui the horses of Sir George Clifford, the Hon. J. D. Ormond and a number of other owners were entrained for their home quarters, and at the same time the trainers of other horses took their leave with horses to race at the Otaki meeting, while others went to Hawera, northwards. On Saturday morning a number of others were sent to various destinations by train, their owners not caring to race them on that day.

Acre, the two-year-old purchased by Mr. Wm. Duncan at the Randwick sales, was given a sprint over three furlongs in company with three others from different stables, and led them home. The gallop was from a standing start, the time being 37sec. Acre is an attractive, shapely, level colt, standing out in appearance from anything in the colt line that we have yet seen racing this season, and it would appear that Mr. Duncan and his mentor, F. Tilley, secured a decidedly useful colt when they purchased the son of Linacre and Miss Alwington.

“Do all Sydney racing clubs charge a shilling for a view of the sky?” asked a stranger to that city, after parting with that amount to go through an outer gate, the sole return being the one mentioned. If the clubs concerned wish to charge Ils. for the paddock and 3s. for the Leger, says “Pilot,” why not announce it straight out, for, as matters now stand, the shilling charged for noth-

ing whatever cannot be regarded otherwise than an imposition. The kindliest view possible is that it is a paltry subterfuge to make the cost of visiting a meeting appear really ’.ess than is the case. Randwick is the only course in or near Sydney where the man so inclined can witness an afternoon’s racing for a shilling.

The secretary of the Western District Racing Association, according to a Sydney paper, received an application from a Forbes woman for a license as a bookmaker’s clerk. In Sydney some years ago a woman clerk figured at race meetings for a time, and a few months back the shortage of males owing to the war caused the employment of women as totalisator clerks at a couple of New Zealand fixtures. They were satisfactory, too, one advantage with them being that they were not greatly interested in what won.

Jack Hay, the stud manager for Mr. J. F. Moore at Bushy Park, Wanganui, has the pedigrees of all the mares that are on a visit to imported Hallowmas in the back of his head. He can retail them back ways or sideways, or when they don’t end up in an Arab fog will run them out to the time of the Ark, and is never so happy as when so engaged. He can tabulate with the best, too, and has run out Hallowmas’ pedigree on paper the size of a quarter piece, which is displayed on one of the walls of the up-to-date stable which houses Hallowmas and a number of his gets, and the gets of other sires, that are to find a market next autumn.

The Grand Prize of Berlin, which carried £5OOO prize money, was run at Berlin-Gruenwald early in July, and was won by the Royal Graditz Stud’s four-year-old Anschluss. That horse’s win brought the Graditz winnings for this year up to £ 12,600. The German Derby was won by Amorino, whose owners, the Herren von Weinberg, gave £3OOO of the stake to the various war and relief funds. If the owner of the A.J.C. Derby winner happens to be a rich man, says an Australian writer, let us hope he follows the example of the Herren von Weinberg, and subscribes liberally to some of our Australian funds. We do not look to Germany, as a whole, for good examples, but the one mentioned is one that would bear following.

The running of Worcester on the first day of the Wanganui meeting, in the Hack Hurdle Race, in which he was fourth, may lead people to suppose that he did not run generously. This would be a mistake. He jumped as well as any of the runners but appeared to be outclassed, and though he ran fourth was not equal to the task in a very fast run mile and five furlongs, a distance that suited Golden March and Austin, who appeared to run themselves to a standstill trying to catch Combustion, and had no finish left when they had succeeded. Then the despised outsider Record, perhaps the best pedigreed one of the lot, came and won handily. Record had been tried over a mile just before the meeting with Combustion, who beat him a hundred yards. Record is by Renown, who was voted the best son of Dreadnought, from Famous, by Natator (son of Traducer) from Fame (a Wanganui Derby winner), by The Painter, and also dam of Captain Webb, fullbrother to Famous.