Turf Topics

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1469, 20 June 1918, Page 12

Turf Topics

■Napier Park races Friday and Saturday.

Hawke’s Bay races Friday and Saturday week. * ♦ * *

Almo should be doing things over the battens before long. # * * *

Colonel Soult is resting and receiving paddock treatment. ° * * * *

Kagul’s lmin. 52%sec. for nine furlongs is a Queensland record. * * * *

J Williamson intends sending Hautere to Sydney to be raced there under P. Nolan’s tuition. ♦ ♦ * *

Sydney “Referee” has a par stating that .£4621 was the total invested at Randwick on the Winter Stakes. .** * ♦

Mr. H, Cotter has gone to Australia, where his horses are to race in the spring.

The grand Patriotic Carnival held on the Ellerslie racecourse on Saturday was a great success. * , * * *

Gazique, a useful horse anywhere, was a great champion at Gisborne last week.

St. Elmn has apparently become sound enough to pay up for at the Napier Park meeting. * * * *

Mr. Geo. Harper, who died suddenly recently at Makirikiri, Wanganui, was -the son of an old Wanganui settler.

Biplane’s arrival at Randwick in fairly forward condition was announced last week from Sydney by cable.

The brothers W. and V. Casey have gone on a visit to Sydney. Their horses, Demotic and Informal, are to follow.

Weight does not stop a good fit one when the company is not select or quite ready, as instance Pursefiller’s first day’s showing at Gisborne. * * * *

Ben Deeley’s followers have long been classing him as Al, but he has been classed C2 by the Medical Board.

Poitrina and Arch Marella, two new record makers in Australia, descend from excellent New Zealand families on their maternal side.

The Avondale-trained Hiero has gone to Napier to fulfil engagements there. S. G. Lindsay, his trainer, has gone in charge.

Don Patch is one of the first of Sylvite’s stock to win in New Zealand. He paid a fine price to start off with at Gisborne.

W. Sharpe, the well-known Auckland trainer, is reported to have been offered a position as private trainer to a Wanganui owner.

Dame Acre, a first-class mare in Sydney, was expected to retire to the paddock, but her owner has renewed the lease and she will race again in the spring.

A chair for use in the Auckland Racing Club’s office has been covered with the skin of Carbine, and was on show in a draper’s window in Queen Street last week.

Immortal, by Martian —Everlasting, who won a two-year-old race last spring at Rosehill, N.S.W., for Mr. G. D. Greenwood, who then sold him, is reported to be doing well, and is expected to pay his way this season.

Ronald Cameron, the ex-New Zealand horseman, is recovering from the accident which brought about the breaking of a leg at Albury, N.S.W., but will not be able to ride for some time.

A number of horses entered for the Napier Park meeting went wrong after being nominated. A number were in “queer street” before nomination, but were possibly entered in the hope that they might be patched up.

Weights for the New Zealand Grand National meeting are not to appear this year until after the Wellington Racing Club’s winter meeting. This is a sensible arrangement.

Chortle, owing to slipping and spreading himself while in the paddock, will need a good spell off. His sister, Chuckle, having broken down will go. to the stud.

Kauri King should go on improving until he wins one of the best hurdle events on the calendar. If he has not been kept rather long to flat racing he may prove a really firstclass one at the jumping game.

After running second to Jack Rice on the first day of the A.J.C. June meeting, Tararu Jack was second on the next day to Montauk at a difference of 121 b. in the latter’s favour.

The Maori boy Wi Keepa has added to his winning achieivements. In a donkeys’ race without saddle or bridle on Saturday at the grand patriotic meeting at Ellerslie he succeeded over a dozen white boys.

Gazique’s performance at Gisborne under weight only goes to show what a useful horse in form can do with moderates, and the same remark applies to the form of Pursefiller in the hurdle race, her fitness and experience as against the want of experience of some of her opponents being proof.

Mr. A. Yuille is retiring from the committee of the V.R.C., and Mr. J. M. Niall, a one-time well-known racing man in Queensland, who knows the business from A to Z, is a candidate for the position. The lastnamed was a partner with the late Mr. J. C. Williamson in Cadonia, and owned Citadel when that horse won the Queensland Cup thirty years ago. * * *

When referring to the rumours that a good many New Zealand horses might visit Randwick for spring racing, “Pilot” suggested that possibly the respective owners of a few of the horses referred to might eventually arrive at the conclusion that it might be as well to stay at home with their own spring meetings —particularly the N.Z. Cup fixture —in view. They may do the A.J.C. spring meeting and return and do the C.J.C. fixture.

Though still left with half a dozen or more representatives at Napier Park, for eight Auckland-trained horses the first acceptance was not made.

There were some enquiries from would-be purchasers of Thrace last week, but no business is reported. The son of Poseidon is now working at headquarters under Gilchrist.

Desert Gold has again been accorded a nomination for the Melbourne Cup. Will she receive more weight or less weight than she got in the last?

In another six weeks Stone Ginger will run as a fifteen-year-old. Though he is being - reported a year older than that he ranks as fourteen years old until August 1.

Meltchikoff answered satisfactorily during last week two schooling questions he was set over the battens at Ellerslie with Moddite as a schoolmaster. The last-named jumped a bit too slow for the beginner on Saturday.

Fisher has been on the easy list since the Great Northern meeting, but has been nominated for the Wellington meeting. It is thought probable that he and Hopfield may be taken to Australia if the last-named continues to shape satisfactorily in schooling essays over hurdles.

Fancy a horse like San Francisco, sire of so many useful and good horses, being sold to go to the Chatham Islands —and a brother to St. Frusquin, too. He is the first imported horse to go there, but some well-bred ones have seen service on the Islands during the past forty years, and amongst them some very fair performers.

Red Pennant has made steady improvement in Australia, and in beating, amongst others. Lanius and Thana and a good field of weight-for-age horses over a mile and a-quarter in Queensland put up what looked like an excellent performance, but owing to bumping others runners, including Bunting, his brother, he was disqualified. The longer races Lanius and Thana have had have been against them.

Mr. Frank Marshall, of Morrinsville, has claimed the name of Marble Slab for one of his young thoroughbreds by Marble Arch.

A two-year-old filly by Sunny South is in training near Sydney, and claims as his dam Sahara, dam of a number of winners. Sahara was twentysix years old when she produced the

Just a few horses at Ellerslie training quarters are doing fairly solid work. This is evidently with a view to events not far away. Waimai, the Great Northern Steeplechase winner, is one of them.

“Pilot,” in the “Referee,” says that Wolaroi has concluded a few weeks’ spell, and looks well, and if his leg does not interfere with his preparation Biplane and Desert Gold will find him a formidable opponent up to a mile and a-half in the spring.

On the Macleay river, New South Wales, the jockeys riding at a meeting there struck because they considered some of the entrants too green to start in a field of sixteen. The stewards promptly struck the race out.

The Messrs. Riddiford’s stable, according to returns furnished by “Sir Lancelot,” won £5644 during the past season, bringing their total to £14,704 in five seasons, and they have not had very large teams. Menelaus won nearly half the amount the stable secured this season.

The Tasmanian sportsmen the Messrs. W. L. and T. L. Field, sons of the well-remembered breeder and sportsman of “the tight little island,” have sold their property there and are going to Victoria to reside, and are expected to race a few horses there.

Wedge, who is one of the few topnotch sprinters or good horses up to a mile in Australia, was lame and in need of a spell at a recent date. One of his knees troubled him on the occasion of his visit to the A.J.C. spring meeting last year, and he ran well at that time.

The stewards of the Rockhampton Jockey Club fined an owner and rider £25 each because they thought that it would be sufficient punishment for not allowing Balpate to do his best. The stewards evidently think touching the pockets of offenders against the rules is better than disqualification.

One well-known Randwick trainer has a vein of humor above the ordinary. Recently when a friend was looking over his charges the remark was made, says “Pilot,” that one horse did not do much work. ‘No,” was the reply of the trainer, “he doesn’t stand much. I read the training notes in the papers to him; that’s about all he wants.”

Poitrina, who holds the Australasian record for 5% furlongs, and who is by The We'kin from Armigera, by St. Leger from Armilia, by Castor from Necklace, equalled the Australian record for six furlongs when she won the June Stakes at Randwick in lmin. 11% sec. Her rider, K. Bracken, was fined £5 for breaking through the tapes.

Auckland horses accepted for at the Napier Park meeting are Munster, Hyllus, Hiero, Persian Prince, Kauri King, Ibex and Sylvasco. Kauri King has now a 101 b. penalty for the Ahuriri Hurdle Race and Pursefiller’s weight has been increased 51b., .by reason of their respective Gisborne successes. Cleft’s weight in the Stewards’ Handicap is now 10.11 and Master Timi’s weight in the Napier Steeples 11.6.

T. A. Williams, one-time trainer at Ellerslie and a very good man with “the mittens” prior to taking-bn the horse business, will have a large team of New Zealand j owned horses in his stables at Canterbury, New South Wales, in the near future. Tararu Jack, Agnestes,- Pierrepont, Dood and British Arch are now there, and the Messrs. Casey are placing Informal and Demotic with him, while >■ Hymeona and Lady Jack, purchased by Mr. H. Cotter, and a pony called Ngaroto, by Spalpeen from the Aus : tralian-bred mare Love, by Bundook, owned by Mr. H. Weal, of Te Awamutu, will go into the same stable. Love is a full-sister to Gift, winner of the Hobart Cup and Launceston Cup.