THE CLUBMAN

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1429, 13 September 1917, Page 6

THE CLUBMAN

The first race meeting held in the new racing season, entered upon last month, was the Canterbury Jockey Club’s New Zealand Grand National fixture —an old-establ shed meeting. Though restricted to two days to meet the demands of the National Government, its success was assured from the time the nominations appeared, notwithstanding that it followed after a three days’ meeting held at Trentham the previous month, which knocked out some of the horses. The public supported che South Island meeting staunchly, and it must have proved a very payable one, despite the fact that the stakes paid away were never so large for a two days’ meeting of the kind in New Zealand The New Zealand, Metropolitan Trotting Club’s meeting was likewise a most successful one. Trotting meetings held at Addington, near the Cathedral City, usually are, and promise to continue so. What happened in the South Island there is every expectat on of being the experience of clubs in the North Island.

The Marton J.C. meeting set the ball rolling in the North last week, and though it was only a one-day meet ng and the expenses to owners and trainers and the public of getting there have increased all round, especially to the horse owners, the fields were very large, horses coming from Hawke’s Bay, Wellington. Taranaki, Wanganui and Auckland. There was plenty of speculation, and, as in the South, a decided increase over the corresponding day of 1916 in the amount of money handled at the revenue getter, the totalisator. There are probably quite as many horses in framing as there were at che same time last year, and as there are fewer races for them to compete in, and fewer in the spring through clubs dropping their spring meetings for preference, it was only to be expected that fields would be good for sucn clubs as provided for the requirements of the owners. The misgivings of some clubs that one-day meetings are not likely- to be well patronised, :n the face of what the Marton Jockey Club experienced, are premature. They will draw horses, and people to witness them, and there need no longer be any doubt about this, even though there are drawbacks. Any loss and inconvenience through the altered railway conditions and charges will not be reflected immediately in what owners will do. They may by the end of the season find that their racing has been more expensive to them, but there are still a good many who love to race for the pleasure it gives them, and can afford to have their colours unfurled even if they don’t always make ends meet. A more equal distribution of the stakes

would no doubt keep many more in the great game.

Having already catered so well for the really good horses, clubs all round should look forward to assisting those owners who, though they never seem to get hold of anything very classy, nevertheless breed and purchase w-th the object of getting the best, and by their consistency and persistency in racing the best they can raise or procure are really doing their bit and are the mainstays of the clubs, for the reason that they are. and always have been, in a large majority, and in the ordinary course must continue so. There is always room at the top, but the trouble is to get there, strive as they may. The big breeders who breed for sale look for a good general average, but they must have markets for their worst as well as their best, and they are pleased to find clubs all round giving specially well endowed prizes of the classic, so-called classic, and the weight-for-age order. At the same time, unless races are provided on a liberal scale for the second and thirdraters they breed, which are in a majority, they will continue to complain that they have had to give some of their yearlings away. The restriction of the number of days of racing has already had the effect of cheapening the second-raters still further, since there are so many of them, and now the cost of breeding and keeping

horses has increased so largely and training and traveling expenses have been added to, if fewer horses find the'r way into stables later on, as a result, it will be because the moderates, which cost as much to keep as the good ones, are not sufficiently well catered for.

It looks well on clubs’ programmes to see leading races well endowed, but there is such a thing as overdoing it at the expense of owners who are obliged to patronise the minor events, and do so in such a liberal way as to make them by far the most payable the clubs have. Notwithstand'ng their small value, they are quite as freely patronised by speculators, even more so at times, than the races for the bigger stakes. The minor races always more than pay for themselves at least twice over, or even in some cases three times over —indeed, at some of the metropolitan meetings the proportion of stakes to actual receipts has been as low as a fourth for particular races. At suburban and

country meet ngs the same thing has teen not ceable. Some minor races should be restricted to non-winners, and others to horses that have not won stipulated sums ranging down to as low as 25sovs. to 50sovs. at some of the smaller meetings. We fancy that better results for the owners Avould be achieved at many small gatherings if all races with the exception of two flat handicap events per day were restricted to horses that had not Avon more in one stake than loOsovs., and that only horses that had Avon races of that value or more should be alloAved to compete for the ch ef prizes.

The classification of horses is not properly arrived at under existing conditions The hack conditions do not adequately meet Avhat is Avanted. They are too often taken advantage of to allow horses to compete that should be in another class altogether. Owners of really good horses make stepping stones of some of the events with hack conditions to give their horses a race or two in public before fly ng at higher game. Those races are often very hard to win, by reason of the fact that an odd competitor or

two which have never raced, or whose form has not been elucidated in public, are allowed to run against horses which have started meeting after meetng and whose form —third or second-rate at best —has been fully exposed. We hope that clubs all round will decide on giving better prizes for the hack races, by makingsecond and th rd monies, as ivell as the firs:, more attractive than in the past. We ivould go so far as to suggest. now that we are getting big fields and placing fourth horses, that fourth prizes should be given in a good many of the events when fields of stipulated numbers take part. The owners of the first and second have the chance of winning per medium of the totalisator. We have no desire to single out any particular club, but if we take the recent meet ng at Marton we find that that club, after paying the Government their share of the tote money and allowing . their ordinary percentage for working the totalisator, Avill have over £4OO over and above the stake money from the

totalisator alone, to say nothing of receipts from nominations and acceptances, gate money, cards and privileges, Avhich would leave the club with a very big profit over the meeting. If the stakes had been double what they Avere, the profits of the meeting, Avhich no doubt exceeded the most sanguine expectations of the committee, ivould have still paid handsomely after paying expenses in connection thereAv.tli, The Marton Jockey Club should have a rattling good spring meeting next year.

The spring campaign at Randwick may now be said to have commenced in earnest. Saturday last saAA r the annual spring meet ng of Tattersail’s Club in full siving, and thereat a number of New Zealand horses Avere in evidence. The cabled information is very brief, but it can be said that a fair start has been made. The NeAV Zealand OAvned and bred Good Day (8.5), by Boniform from Sunlight, won the first division of the Novice Handicap over six furlongs in lmin. 16sec., beating Earlsan, 9.0 (top weight) by half a length. Mr. W. G-. Stead owns Good Day. In the Chelmsford Stakes, which iveight for

age race,- ivith certain penalties and alloAvances, is run over nine furlongs, Biplane (8.2), The Toff (9.4), Kilflinn (7.11), each carrying 71b. penalty, and Red Pennant (7.5), allowed 201 b.. were the New Zealanders that competed. The race, for which eighteen started, went to Mr. “J. Baron’s” Prince Viridis 8.2 (including 71bs. penalty), by Prince Foote from Da Crosse (imported), Lingle 9.4 being second and Cetigne 9.11 (including 71bs penalty) third. The race Avas run in lmin. 54 sec. —very good i.me. Great things Avere expected of Lingle last season, and Cetinge Avas one of the very best two and three-year-olds in the CommonAvealth. Deeley’s handling of Mr. Greenwood’s colt Biplane did not satisfy the stew rards until his explanation Avas asked, and then everything Avas in order. The imported mare Shrill, owned by Mr. W. G. Stead, had 8.12 in the TraniAvay Handicap, a seven-furlong race, in which Quinologist 9.5 (imp.), Conquistador 9.4, and Chantemerle (imp.) Avere the only ones Aveighted above her. Shrill is by LlangAvn

from Valve, a half-sister to Bezonian. Plymouth (11.4) ran unplaced in the steeplechase, in Avh’ch Tararu Jack Avas weighted at 11.7, but was not started. The Spring Handicap Avent to Mr. J. Baron’s good horse Wallace Isinglass (8.13). with First Lesson (7.11) second and Bursar (an imported horse and a good one. carrying 9.7) third, the mile and a-quarter taking 2m n. sec.

Coming events in Australia have plenty of interest for NeAV Zealanders, as so many horses from the Dominion, or owned by Ncav Zealanders and ex-New Zealanders, are engaged. Tararu Jack, Plymouth, and Tenacious are in the hurdle races at the Australian Jockey Club’s meeting, Avhich commences on September 29. Tararu Jack Plymouth and Waimai are in the steeplechases there, KiloAvatt, Red Pennant and Good Day are in the Trial Stakes, Biplane is in the A.J.C. Derby, Shrill, Sweet Corn and Tressida in the Epsom Handicap, The Toff, Kilboy, Kilflinn, Sasanof in the Spring Stakes (w.f.a., one mile and a-half), Ample, Red Rock, Kill’em, Good Day, Beltane, Sweet Corn, Shrill in the Kensington Handicap, the same lot Avith the exception of Kill-’em in the Shorts, Biplane, Immortel, Ample, Kill-’em and Kilflinn in the Clibbon Stakes, Kilboy, Shrill, Sweet Corn, Red Pennant, Kilflinn and Tressida in the Metropolitan. Mr. E. J. Watt has a colt, Best Steel (by Bright Steel from Mary Seaton), Mr. G. L. Stead a colt, Mele (by Martian from Formless) and a colt Almoner (by Boniform from Cassock) in the Breeders’ Stakes.

Mr. E. J. Watt has Bel nda, by Linacre (imp.) from Maltee, and Fortify, by Fortafix (imp.) from Alcestes, in the A.J.C. Gimcrack Stakes, also Queen’s Bounty, by Almissa (imp.) from Royal Favour. In the Squatters’ Handicap The Toff, Kill-’em, Kilflinn, Beltane and Shrill, in the Craven Plate Biplane, The Toff, Kilboy, Kilflinn, Sasanof and Shrill, in the Suburban Handicap Ample, Red Rock, Beltane, Sweet Corn and Shrill, in the Members’ Handicap Biplane, Immortel, Kilowatt, Ample, Red Rock, Kill’em and Kilflinn, in the Sydney Handicap The Toff and Red Pennant, in the High-Aveight Handicap Ample, Red Rock, Good Day, Beltane, Sweet Corn, Shrill and Tressida, in the Waverley Handicap Red Pennant, in the Grantham Stakes Biplane, Immortel, Red Rock, Ample, Kill-’em, Kilflinn and Good Day, in the Randwick Plate The Toff, Kilboy, Kilflinn and Sasanof, and in the Final Handicap Kill-’em, Beltane and Shrill.

Prince Viridis, Avho Avon the Chelmsford Stakes on Saturday is in the A.J.C. Derby, as also is Biplane, Avho was ticked off as likely to be the hardest to beat in the Chelmsford Stakes. It may be that Biplane can turn the tables, but recent form looks against him though he Avas hurried, and if Prince Viridis wins the Rosehill Guineas, which he very likely will do this week, he Avill be the favourite for the A.J.C. Derby, as it was expected that he Avould improve with a race or two.