THE CLUBMAN

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1410, 3 May 1917, Page 8

THE CLUBMAN

The Hawke’s Bay Jockey Club’s autumn meeting is to be held on Friday. As people at a distance do not get a chance of seeing the acceptances until about fifty-two hours before the meeting commences, it does not g ve them much time to make up their minds and get on their way thither. It is practically certain that a number of the good horses will not be on hand to compete in the chief races, as they resumed home after the Wellington meeting, but as there is plenty of material engaged in local stables, and as there will be no difficulty in getting horses to the meeting now that railage facilities have been to some extent provided for, a very good meeting should result, and at least a few of the best of Dominion horses should be on hand to take part. The Hawke’s Bay Jockey Club has been a long time established, and some of the leading members, who are wealthy men, have been most patriotic, and in determining that the meet ng would be he’d in the face of threatened disadvantages pursued a course showing their public spirit, as the club has laboured under a big handicap for some time past. We trust that their meeting will pan out satisfactorily.

One hundred and twelve thousand people attended the Sydney Show on Easter Monday, and a Sydney paper in announcing the fact remarked that it was cheaper than going to the ■ races, yet on the same day some fifty thousand people found their way to ■ Randwick. In New Zealand there are some people who would not hold ; shows or races during war time, and doubtless there are some in the Commonwealth who are of the same mind, .but they are in a hopeless m.nority. It is no use talking o: puling down the blinds or putting up the shutters during the continuance of the war. 'We must keep going, and the “goslow” policy in any department of our ■ national l.fe w T ould do more harm ;than good. Where it is possible to hold shows and race meetings, and if there are not too many of them for the people to run successfully, they shou.d.by all means hold them. The railway service plays a prominent part in connection with boch, and if the train service of the past cannot be maintained we may have to go on under modified conditions and adapt ourselves to those conditions, but to stop racing altogether would be most unwise. The partial stoppage of racing will come about w.th■out any legislative interference. Sevleral clubs have stopped because their meetings have not of late been successful financially, and they do not wish to court disaster; and others because they saw no prospect o: going on under the condit.ons that were threatening a fortnight ago. An expected shortage of coal made the ’position look black, but some of the ;clubs acted rather hastily, perhaps. If train, steamer, electric and other ; services can be adjusted to meet .emergencies, why not racing affairs? 'There is no use rushing matters, how- • ever.

! The Egmont Racing Club, before ; deciding to go on with their meeting ■ next week, sent the owners and trainers of horses nominated circulars asking if their support could be counted upon. Replies were so satisfactory that the club elected to see the meeting through, and though a few of ihe horses may have to be walked comparatively short distances that will not be found a very great hardship or drawback to the meeting. The ordinary passenger train service north of Hawera will be found convenient for many, who are sure to give their patronage, and a good many people south of Hawera will manage to rise to the exigencies of the occasion if it does mean spending a little more time and money in following the bent of their inclinations. Those who really : want to go and who have the time will do without special train concessions. We may look for a big lot of motors to be requisitioned for the meeting, and there will be a run on accommodation in Hawera and adjacent towns. It is understood that horses will be carried by train from

most stations, but under new regulations providing for payment both ways, go ng and returning, and not under the old conditions, whereby payment was only made one way and the return journey was free. The Railway Department kept faith with the visiting owners to the Auckland Trotting Club’s recent meeting, and conveyed all the horses back to their destinations, starting on Friday morning. There was for some time a fear that there might be some delay. To those with Southern engagements the quick disposal of the business in hand meant a very great deal.

The final payments for the Manawatu Stakes and for the Awapuni Gold Cup are published in th’s issue, and taken all round the acceptances for the handicaps are a best on record. This is due to the popularity of the club, and to some extent to the patriotism of owners, who, knowing that the whole of the profits of the Manawatu Racing Club’s meetings have been given—and dur’ng the continuance of the war are to be given—to patriotic purposes, have been desirous of assisting to make them successful. As a matter of fact, the Manawatu Racing Club has done proportionately more than any other

racing institution in the Dominion, and is deserving of the highest praise, and though the postponement of their autumn meeting was found advisable it is to be hoped that the results will be just as good when the figures are made up as if it had been held at due date. The owners of Desert Gold, Kilboy, Sasanof, The Toff, Bjorneborg and Bee are likely to see that the club will have a race for the Awapuni Gold Cup, and that event in itself will prove a big attraction.

The fact that the Jockey Club has cancelled all fixtures under its jurisdiction in England, after the first spring meeting, in order to economise grain, is a view of the racing situation that had not seriously presented itself until the submarine campaign had reached such an acute stage as to more than threaten —indeed, to place in jeopardy—the future food supplies of England from overseas. The action of the Jockey Club would not have been taken if it had not been found absolutely necessary. The executives o' racing institutions in Britain have never hesitated to dispense with meetings which the authorities have thought advisable in the interests of industrialism. Abandonment of meetings in districts where munit ons were being made, and where military camps were required, followed in quick succession in the early stages of the war, until racing became reduced to attenuated

proportions. The self-admin ; stered blow to racing by the Engl'sh Jockey Club is the most serious of all, not because there is any desire on sentimental grounds to dispense with lacing dur'ng war time, but for pressing economic reasons which cannot be overlooked. With racing almost at a standstill in England, such a thing has never previously been known in the history of the British turf. The reasons for the stoppage of racing will be alike unpalatable to its friends as its enemies, who have been too blind to what a very important part the horses bred in England and Ireland and in the allied countries and colonies have been playing in the war. It will take many years for England to recover what has been lost through the heavy curtailment of racing, which has practically ruined many thousands engaged in connection therewith, and J n the horsebreeding—and particukirly the thoroughbred horse-breeding—industry, of wTiich England is the home.

The new railway time-table has been issued, and in revert'ng to the old practice of charging fares each way for the carriage of racehorses to and from race meetings from the Ist of the present month, the Government

cannot be blamed, though it was only after hard fighting and representations from racing clubs and associations that the rates that ruled for so many years were agreed to. It should be some consolation to those who follow the sport to know that they can still travel at ordinary rates themselves, if they cannot get the same special fares and facilities as were afforded them for at least a good many years past. Some old-time settlers can remember the time when they, as boys, and their forefathers journeyed to race meetings in vehicles of the roughest possible make, such as bullock drays. We have long since passed the bullock dray stage, and can, on a pinch, put up with slow-running trains when faster ones are not available. In England some owners have shown themselves independent of the trains for the same reason, by running their horses to meetings in motor conveyances by road, and there is not altogether a remote possibility of conveying racehorses and passengers by aeroplanes under emergencies in the not far distant future. Only this week we met an Auckland resident whose wfe’s grandmother was conveyed in a bullock dray, with other ladies, to a ball held at Government House, and no doubt if it became a question of getting to such a function in the old-fashioned way or remaining away, the bullocks and the dray might still be requisitioned. People who are fond of racing will

get there somehow, and there would be a goodly crowd at Ellershe even if racegoers had to journey there per boot from the nearest and farthest away suburbs of Auckland. It is certain that no other form of amusement would have qute such a magnetic attraction.

On this page we present a photograph of the four contestants for the Trentham Gold Cup, decided at the recent Wellington autumn meeting, who, as readers know, were Desert Gold, Kilboy, The Toff and Sasanof, each with performances that have distinguished them f rom the common herd, and it would be safe to say that four horses with a better, or so good, an aggregate of w’nnings of leading events in Australia and New Zealand and in monetary value were never stripped on a New Zealand racecourse before. It is a common practice to judge horses on the amount of their stake earnings rather than their actual qualifications, but we cannot go so far as one of our contemporar’es. who has declared that the quartette of equines referred to made the best field that has ever competed in any one race in the Dominion. We said last week that ™e believed that Desert Gold would beat

any four-year-old of her sex in Australasia, that Kilboy was probably the best three-year-old colt, and that Sasanof and The Toff had no equals of their age amongst geldings n the Dominion, or in the Commonwealth at the present time, and we are satisfied that our friends across the Tasman Sea would have a task to pick out four of like ages and sexes to race with them on weight-for-age terms, from a mile and a-quarter to two miles.

The disqualification of Croesus had not long expired when that brilliant gelding started racing again, and it has been stated that had he won an objection would have been lodged on the grounds that he was in training before the term of his suspension was up. We have never had the question raised as to whether a horse may or may not be trained or kept in work during the time of disqualification. If not, a year’s disquabification would mean at least 18 months before a disqualified horse would be ready to race again, and some might take longer. The ru’es of racing should be made clear on this point. Horses disqualified in the late autumn or winter could not well be turned out right away, and if keeping them in exercise and in stable quarters could be interpreted as against the laws of racing then -we suppose they would not be qualified to race, but we are unaware of any rule that would debar them.