TURF TOPICS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1446, 3 January 1918, Page 10

TURF TOPICS.

Inah won the Flying Handicap at Taranaki in Im n. 14 4-ssec.

Hopfield is quite out of the boom after his Railway Handicap d splay.

Pergola and Madam Ristori, 'first and second in the Borough Handicap at Taranaki, are by Marble Arch.

No more substantial horse ran at Ellersle than the English-bred Polydamon.

Hector Gray was the only rider at Ellerslie on Boxing Day to ride two winners.

Lady General, by General Latour, once agan in evidence at Manawatu. How consistent. * * * *

Kitty Bellairs at last —at the Thames. A Thames “Old .Boy,” her owner, will be proud.

4n accident to Birkenvale was the cause of that geld.ng being withdrawn from the Railway Hand cap

Aged horses that ran up to their test form at Ellerslie on Cup Day were King Lupn and Colonel Soult.

The crowd at Ellersl e on Boxing Day was probably a record one. The people managed to get there, despite the want of a train service.

Alteration has at last had an overdue winning turn, by scoring the Christmas Handicap at Taranaki. Sam Henderson was up.

Longe Range, winner of the A.R.C. Nursery, is a good advert'sement for the Auckland-bred Antagonist and Telescope, and is aptly named.

Taranaki tote figures £24,112 10s., against £19,747 last year. Manawatu £4B, as against £40,025. The Auckland R.C. do not have increases cn their own.

Spalperion a double winner over the obstacles at the Thames, was long overdue, and his owner deserved his successes, as he has had a lot of bad luck with the Spalpeen gelding.

80-peep was amongst the two-year-old disappointments last Wednesday in the Foal Stakes. Informal, who looked the most robust of the starters, was another.

Fiery Cross was qu te the best handicap horse over a distance seen at Ellerslie on Box’ng Day, and upset those who held ideas that suggested lack of staying abil'ty.

Sir Solo, the Auckland Cup winner of 1913, won the Grafton Hurdle Race on his superior staying abil’ty over the unlucky Fisher, who ran his best race.

Pontoon ran Demagogue over from the inside to the outside of the course over the last half-furlong, but Gray got Demagogue clear and his win was meritor ous under the circumstances.

Roach rode four winners at the Thames —Spalperion in the Hurdles and Steeples, Campaign in the Hack Race and Cardrona in the Stewards’ Hand'cap. Warner won a double; D llimore and Cotton each a race.

The totalisator staff at Ellerslie on Boxing Day handled £80,985, and probably the turnover would ha.ve reached £90,000 had the investors started earlier and so many had not been shut out.

Three horses trained by T. and K. Quinlivan started in the Railway Handicap and three trained by J. Lowe in the Auckland Cup, and not one of them got “a shop.” Some money could have been won against such a contingency.

A lot of people had enough of Johnny Walker last week to last them a long time. The big fellow was all abroad over the Ellerslie course. We should like to see him tried for stick rac’ng. His action will heat him on any but a level course. * « • *

Seven horses that ran in the New Zealand Cup competed in the Auckland Cup. and only one of them, Mult’ply, got a place. The rest were headed by Teka, who was fifth. Multifual was eighth and Johnny Walker and Snub ninth and tenth, with Menelaus and Paraoa twelfth and thirteenth.

After working on Monday morning Crispeen, who jumped, was bleeding when he returned from the track.

For the first t’me for many years the summer meeting of the Auckland Racing Club s a three days’ one.

Most of the best horses than ran at the Canterbury Jockey Club’s spring meet ng are assisting at the Ellerslie meeting, but a few are racing elsewhere or are not racing at all.

C. Reed, the lightweight rider, complained to the A.R.C. stewards that he had been engaged to r de Wa uta in the Railway Handicap, and that mare’s trainer was ordered to pay him a losing mount.

Though Auckland-owned horses won a few races at Ellerslie on the opening day of the summer meeting, King Lupin was the only one bred in the province, and he proved himself once again an evergreen, and never better than when he dead-heated with Hymestra.

With an improved racecourse at Ellersl e it was only to be expected that some record times would soon be established for the course. Fiery Cross’ Auckland Cup performance, 3min. 25 4-ssec., beat Warstep’s 3min. 26 3-ssec., the previous best. The Railway Handicap time o e King Lup n and Hymestra has only once been beaten, and that was when King Lupin won in 1913 in lmin. 13 l-ssec , at 3yrs., w th 7.0 on his back.

Though horses .from outside provinces have put up most of the best gailops registered this season at Ellerslie, some of the fastest were done by Auckland provinc al horses —not ELerslie-trained, however.

In almost every race at Victoria Park, Adelaide, on Saturday one of the stipend ary stewards either went to the start or viewed the contest from one of the turns, and this move is favourably regarded by all sportsmen over this way, remarked a correspondent of the “Australasian.”

The owner who races unuer the assumed name of Mr. F. Preston left Lingerie in until Monday, December 24, at 9.30 a.m., when she was scratched for the Railway Handicap and other engagements. Linger e cost a few early punters a bit in doubles.

Two of the best gallops registered before the A.R.C. summer meeting were done by horses engaged in the Shortland Plate, w th hack conditions. Glendower, with a fair weight up. ran six furlongs outside the trestles in lmin. 18sec., and Silver Tongue got to the end of seven furlongs in lmin. 33sec. Both were beaten by Lord Kenilworth, who did not work then.

When Estland started behind four Cup horses which ran a useful gallop over a mile and a-quarter, and the time registered by Fiery Cross was 2min. 19sec., it was stated that he was not looking for time, yet registered the same time as Fiery Cross did over the last circuit. Fiery Cross carried the most weight.

The Auckland-owned two-year-old gelding Informal is regularly referred to as a colt.

Cherry Mart, who picked up a piece of a rake, was only lame temporarily at the time, but has worked and raced s nee.

Sh ela, one of the Messrs. Williams’ horses, which dropped out of the A.R.C. Railway Handicap, has no other engagement until the last day. She is in the Newmarket Handicap.

Multifual, Gaz que, Tatimi, Mult ye and G.ucian only arrived from Gisborne on the Saturday before the A.R.C. summer meeting. The lastnamed was sent to the Thames.

Desert Gold appeared to most track watchers at Ellerslie bigger in condition than she has ever previously raced, and she has never looked light at any time.

Birkenvale’s withdrawal from the Auckland R.C. Railway Handicap was due to the geld ng having met with an accident in his box soon after arrival at Ellerslie. This was unfortunate.

Multiply ran a mile outs’de the hurdles on the Monday morning before the A.R.C. meeting, close to the trestles, with Hendra to assist him, and ridden all the way, n 2min. 14sec. It was a good gallop, but he had nothing on his feet and was not loaded with weight.

It is said that Impediment will run in the A.R.C. Derby on January Ist.

Colonel Soult was not too old for all the field in the Christmas Handicap on Boxing Day at Ellerslie save the English-bred Polydamon. Mr. Gleeson’s gelding ran right up to his best form, and looked 1 ke a winner well inside the d stance.

Kipling, the half-brother to Bobrikoff, from Gossip, looks just the sort to go fast at two years old, but was broken later than some of the others in Mr. Lowry’s team, and 's a very nice colt. Bobrlkoff was not broken until he was about six months older.

A two-year-old colt that struck us as likely to make a good horse with age if he does not get knocked out. before he matures, :'s Mar March, by Martian from Two Step. He is a big. loose youngster, with lots of quality, and should pay to wait for —one that certainly wants time, whatever he may do this season. He is in the right hands to be given a chance, we should think. There were a number of well-grown, undeveloped two-year-olds at Ellerslie dur'ng the week.

The Auckland flat horses engaged at Ellerslie, with few exceptions, appear to lack the class of the visitors in appearance and gallop’ng ability. King Lupin n the matter of looks, though only what can be described as a big-little horse, would more than qu : te hold his own. and the little mare Tinopai is full of quality, and there are a few more outside the ranks of two-year-olds, of which Informal ! s amongst the most shapely. The English horse Polydamon more than holds h's own.

Desert Gold’s winnings up to the s:art of the A.R.C. meeting amounted to £16,415.

The Auckland two-year-olds Informal, Spanner, Bonanza and Hineamaru are entered for the Wellington meeting, also Uncle Ned and Housewife.

Hymestra, while galloping on Saturday morning, knocked one of his hocks rather hard, chipping cut pieces of skin, though he did not seem sore at the time as a result.

While working at Ellerslie cn Sunday morning, Elocution took charge of her rider, a light boy, and w th her clothing on galloped once round the track and then also galloped across the centre of the grounds, apparently without injuring herself.

Cetigne, perhaps the best m ler n Australia now Biplane is in New Zealand, and a rattling good young horse, won the A.J.C. Villiers’ Stakes, run over a mile at Randwick, in Im n. 38% sec., carrying 9.4. He won by two lengths and bea: Wedding Day (8.7), with Merr'mee (8.7) third.

T. A. Williams, the well-known trainer, is on a visit to Auckland from Sydney, where he has been located for several years since he was actingin a s’milar capac ty at Ellerslie for a considerable time. W lliams was the owner of Putty when that gelding won the Auckland Cup in .1905.

J. Patterson, who now trains The Toif, considers that he has d scovered the cause of the New Zealander having bled after his races in Melbourne, and states that the trouble has y.elded to treatment. The horse has shown no signs of this weakness since Patterson took him n hand.

Several horsemen who have ridden previous winners o: the Auckland Cup were up in that race again this year. They were Roy Reed on Cyn’c. J. O’Shea on Multifual, C. Emerson on Teka, F. E. Jones on Adjutant, J. Conquest on Red R bbon, and B. Deeley on Johnny Walker.

Overweights were again in evidence at Ellerslie. Th s at a metropolitan meeting, where so many horsemen assemble and are employed, is the best argument for increas.ng the minimum. As it was a lot of the riders were “on the muzzle” during the week preced ng the meeting, and would go short all this week.

In this year’s Auckland Cup the only two owners who had previously won the race and who were represented again, were Mr. F. Dorset, who won with Sir Solo in 1913 and who was a winner in the hurdle race, and Mr. R. Barlow, who won with Depredation last year.

The best dividend pa d on BoxingDay at Ellerslie was over Fiery Cross in the Auckland Cup, and it was a substantial one. The next best was in the weight-for-age Shortland Plate, but the only other one to go beyond £5 was that paid on Polydamon in the last race of the day. Most of the dividends, as a matter of fact, were small, and first and second favourtes were fairly conspicuous amongst dividend payers, though a few failed ignominiously.

Mr. J. F. Hartland, secretary, nforms us that the committee of the Auckland Racing Club have, not had before them the question of shifting the judge’s box back a few feet from the rails. The subject may be brought up in an official way, buc it has not yet been discussed at meetings, and the report circulated to the contrary is incorrect. If there were more finishes under judges’ boxes, execut've committees of clubs would no doubt g’ve the subject some consideration.

When the horses were pass'ng the grandstand the 'first time round in the Auckland Cup, Adjutant was bored into the rails and F. E. Jones came off, striking the rail and then dropping to the ground. It looked as if the southern horseman must have been badly hurt, but beyond some bru'ses and a shaking and being unconsc ous from the shock for a short while, it came as a relief to all to know that he was soon all right. An enquiry by the stewards satisfied them of the crowding of the horses at that stage, but while they arrived at the conclusion that the fall was caused through interference there was not suffie’ent ev’dence to fix the blame on any particular rider; it was caused chiefly by Mullingar, and Goldfinch, his rider, was cautioned.