TURF TOPICS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1408, 19 April 1917, Page 10

TURF TOPICS.

King Mark yearlings at Karamu are well spoken of. » » * * Panmure is to be relegated to the stud netx season. He will not race again. E. Manson is expected to ride for Mr. H. E. Troutbeck in future. * • • No Auckland-owned horses will race at the Wellington meeting this week. * * • * Mr. J. B. Reid was in Sydney at the yearling sales and Randwick races. Arran is a long time coining back to form, and is evidently none too solid. * * * * Hop'field was not produced at Avondale. He should be useful if he keeps right to June. Royal Rufus got backing from somewhere for the Tit rangi Welter at Avondale, but ran badly. ♦ ♦ * * Egypt has taken to bleeding. Let us hope there will be no recurrence of the trouble. Carlysian, by Elysian, was a winner at Avondale, and Ohiwia, by the same sire, won at Feilding. The Christian Brother won the Place Handicap at Randwick on Saturday. * !1: * * The running of Gang Awa and Hushman each time they met at Feilding was very true, heads dividing them. * * * * One race at Ellerslie —and he ran a good one in the Easter Handicap — seemed to completely settle Jack Delaval for a time. • • • • Lady Jack can still gallop fast, and she was running very well at Avondale when carried out at the bend by R'ng Lupin. The Auckland Trotting Club received capital acceptances for their meeting, which commences on Saturday next. • ♦ * • Fiery Cross is one of the sons of Gienapp that is decidedly useful. Gienapp came from the same family as Martian, Boniform and Sungod. Lightning was a bit lucky to win at Avondale. Just as well, as there are not many five-furlong races, and she likes that distance. * * * * Hickey is still persevering with Blackall, but that gelding will hardly make a jumper this season. He has a thorough dislike to racing at all. now. • • • • The Pakuranga Hunt Club intend to hold their race meeting as usual, and to hunt as usual during this season. If All War, the full-brother to El Gallo, does not shape better than Lady Lobelia, his sister, he won’t win any great distinction. * * * * Hiero was not injured when he fell in his second race at Avondale, but several punters who went nap on him feel the effects yet. * * ♦ • Idra is not only unreliable, but unlucky, and her fall at Avondale looks like the last straw. Perhaps she will do better in the welters in June. 4? * * * Next time the Demosthenes colt Demotic races it will be as a gelding. He is a nice shapely chap, and should pay his way all right. He promises to stay. * ♦ ♦ ♦ Kill’em, full-brother to Ki-boy, and winner of the Russley Plate, his first race, is said to be anything but an attractive galloper, but likely to go on winning races all the same. * * * '!' St. Francis carried 121 b. overweight when he ran second to Colonel Soult in the Avondale Handicap. His luck was out when he fell in the Welter on the concluding day. V•■ * ♦ Chaplin, rider of Marble Star in the Mount Roskill Hack Handicap at the Avondale meeting, was fined £2 for disobedience at the post on Saturday. King Lupin was only produced once at the A.R.C. Easter meeting, and though nicely treated on the second day of Avondale did not appear at that meeting, where Tinopai, Rebel and Rekanui did not show to advantage. Mill o’ Gowrie is perhaps the best of the quartette that represented the Hautapu stable.

Racegoers were pleased that Frank Doomb did not go empty-handed from the Avondale meeting. It was only a small stake that Carlysian won, but it would be something towards the expenses of the trip. * * * * It is quite possible that Troublesome might have won the Mount Eden Steeplechase at Avondale on Saturday had he not run down his fences. He will race better lefthanded. * * * * With the exception of Carlysian, all the winners at Avondale on Saturday were got by imported horses three of them —Luperino, Cardrona and G'lenroy—by horses imported by the Seddon Government to improve the breed of horses in the Dominion. * * * * It is stated that an owner took £lOOO from the totalisator when his horse won a race at the Wairarapa meeting on Easter Monday. Such a thing is so exceptional in New Zealand that the item is worth recording.

George Jones takes the horses of Mr. W. G. Stead to Hastings from Christchurch thm week, and they will be tra'ned at Hastings. Murray Hobbs did .well with them for Mr. Stead.

Mr. W. Duncan’s representative purchased a yearling colt at the Sydney sales last week for 120 guineas. The youngster is by Volplane from Hum Drum. * * ♦ * Sir George Clifford may get a little nearer the top of the winning list before the season closes than many expected, but his team this season has not been a strong one by any means. * * S: * J. O’Shea is still holding his place at the head of the winning jockeys’ list, and added one more to his score on the second day of the Avondale meeting, bringing his total to 59. General Joffre and Energy, each of which just got shut out of second place in their respective races at the Avondale meeting, were paying “hatfuls,” being rank outsiders. $ afc £ * Goldfinch’s application for reinstatement was before the Auckland District Racing Committee last Thursday, and was again turned down. What really is the head and front of Goldfinch’s offending?

The win of Hymestra over Simonides, returned in all papers as half a length, and in the official race-card also, should have been half a head. The photos, of the finishes give that mpression. * * C Wr The Auckland Racing Club’s committee on Thursday last donated £5OO to the Soldiers’ Relief Fund, al the solicitation of the Y.M.C.A. for assistance. * * * * A lot of good sports in the trenches in France have horses racing in Australia. New Zealand, and possibly in other parts, and they evidently do not think it wrong for people who cannot go to the war to cont’nue racing. * The Takapuna stable of the Abson Bros., was dead out of luck at Avondale and on top of the defeats o' Agnestes, Lord Kenilworth, Sanacre and Housewife came the fall’ng of the chestnut gelding in the concluding event of the meeting. Ashley Reed added to his list of w’nning rides at the Avonda’e meeting. and his chief successes were on Colonel Soult. Roy Reed was also in evidence. Visiting horsemen can always get a good hearing at Auckland meetings. ♦ r • An offer of £4OO failed to tempt the owner of Sir Wallace to part with that gelding before he ran on the first day at the Feilding meeting. The would be purchaser was likely want’ng him for jumping purposes, and he looks a likely sort for that game. * * * • Cleft is another of Hickey’s team which the owner, Mr. F. Lysnar may put to hurdle racing, and it is said that he jumps well, but the same was said of Blackall. Cleft ’s one o c those wiry customers that should fly the battens all right, but we quite expect to find him figuring in the welter flat events for a time at least, and Hexton also, the last-named being rather young yet for the jumping business.

Ring Lupin ran out wide at the turn into the straight in both races he started in at the Avondale meeting, and the second time had a guard on to keep him from cheeking ' the bit. He might have won the first time if he had not run wide. * S|S ■ * * The hurdle gelding Arlington, who won on the second day of the Feilding meeting, has a suspicious looking leg, and some people never dreamt that he would stand through both his Feilding ordeals and come cut triumphant, but he finished up a favourite the second time and won. He appeared a bit sore afterwards. • ♦ * • Mutiny, one of the best ’chasers of his time, or any time, that ever raced in the Dominion, is still alive at Te Mahanga, his birth place, in Hawke’s Bay, and will be thirty-one years cld next foaling. He raced first when six years old, and that is perhaps why he lasts so well. He was always taken good care of, and never knew what it was to go hungry. Chris, who is three years his junior, is also on the Hawke’s Bay estate of his owner.

The Champion Stakes, of 500sovs., a three-year-old pacers’ race was won by Peter Mac at Addington, Christchurch, on Saturday, in soft going, the mile and a-half being done in 3min. 35sec. —just under a 2.24 ga ; t. Childsdale covered a mile in 2min. 15sec., and Stanley’s Child also a mile in 2min. 14 2-ssec. Hexton is one of the most useful young horses that is being put to the jumping game. He is only three years old, and has raced well under we’ght in hack flat .racing events, and shou’d do nicely under a 9.0 minimum in jumping races when his time comes. * * ♦ • Dr. Beveridge instructed the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency to sell his two-year-o'd fil’y Princess Bee, winner o“ the Juven’le Handicap at Avondale, for the benefit of the Patriotic Fund. There was no hid for her, and then the worthy doctor put in one of 50 guineas himself, and the fund will benefit to that extent. * * * * As an instance of trainers and owners making mistakes, it can be mentioned that the Viceroy’s Cup was won by a fi r ty to one chance. Bachelor’s Wedding, who beat Magyar, who the stable had some good bets about and was the proved best, it is said, in private. K'lton. a 2 to lon favourite, was unplaced, so a lot of people were out in their reckoning. * * * * The Rous Handicap on Saturday, the concluding day of the A.J.C. autumn meeting, was won by the best. three-year-old of her sex. and perhaps the best of all three-year-o’ds over a distance in Australia —Thana. Mr. G. M. Currie’s filly, Tarquisara, ran second to her, but on spring form they were not in the same street. « * * • The A.J.C. Plate on Saturday fell to the Martagon horse Green Cap, who beat Ulva’s Isle, The Fortune Hunter and others. As he was receiving weight from The Fortune Hunter, who is a three-year-old, there is not so much merit in the win as would appear at the first blush. * * * * Both Menelaus and Nystad ran indifferently during the month of March, yet in April blossomed forth and secured the Easters. The win of the first-named has been mentioned as a genuine surprise, and there is reason to refer to the win of the other as another belonging to the same category. * * ■* • Robinson, who has been attached to Mr. R. Hannon’s stable for some years, is certainly one of the live horsemen that Auckland boasts, and is particularly good at the barrier and in getting his mounts off the mark. This has been part of the education he received under the Waikato mentor, whose horses have always ceen noted for beginning well. * * ♦ ♦ After the Southern writers reporting that Sasanof did not get well away in the A.R.C. Easter, or must have won, Deeley’s statement of the case makes quite different reading. That horseman alleges that he got well away and was always well placed. Several writers say he was giving Nystad a long start over the last half-mile. * ♦ ♦ • L. H. Hewitt, who was prevented from riding at both the Auckland and Avondale meetings, had so far recovered as to be out of hospital quarters and was present at the second day’s racing at Avondale as a looker cn only. It was very bad luck not being able to ride after coming to Auckland and having a number of good mounts. * * * * Great interest will be taken in the Trentham Gold Cup, and if Desert Gold, Sasanof, Kilboy, The Toff, Chortle, Tressida, Bee, Bjcrneborg, Rangitero, and Egypt could all be started in the Awapuni Gold Cup that would be a most interesting event. The Australian-owned Bunting was not entered. The Manawatu Stakes should prove an interesting contest, too. if only a fair proportion of the horses engaged are started. * V * a Chortle, notwithstanding his load at the Wairarapa meeting, put up a record for the course over a m le and a-quarter, and this, and his record in the Awapuni Gold Cup two years ago and several other records held by him. points to him as a good one. That record mile of his in the A.R.C. Easter with 9.7 on his back, in lmin. 38 4-ssec., was registered less than twelve months ago, and he is only seven years old now, in his prime, and anything but a spent light. He is undoubtedly champ’ion in the gelding aged division class still.