THE CLUBMAN

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1482, 19 September 1918, Page 8

THE CLUBMAN

Lady James Douglas has just won another important race in England. This is the September Stakes, of jlsoosovs., a substitute for the St. Leger, and the winner, Gainsborough, by Bayardo from Rosedrop, has again demonstrated his superiority over the three-year-olds he has met previously this season. The fact that Rosedrop gets a dash of Musket and Goldsborough blood thrbugh the Auckland-bred Trenton is very pleasing. With the lead established by the aid of Gainsborough, who has now won over all distances up to a mile and three-quarters, the English sportswoman must now be so far ahead of other owners to make it certain that she will be at the top of the list of both breeders and owners in the Old Land when the season closes three months hence. As there . will be little racing from now on, winter racing being declared off by the Government, the question is practically settled now, though there is the Jockey Club Stakes, of 500050v5.,-yet to be decided. Horses she has bred have won upwards of £12,000, and the latest success of Gainsborough, one of the three winners bred by that lady, will probably have given her a lead of quite £6OOO over the horses of Mr. S. B. Joel and Lord Derby, who, two months ago, were next cn the lists, the former as owner and the last-named as breeder. If the wins referred to had been brought off in normal times, with racing in full swing, Gainsborough would have been placed amongst the biggest winners of colts of his age that have graced the turf in England. The fact that the ex-Australian owner Mr. E. W. Cox got second 'in the September Stakes to Gainsborough with his good filly My Dear, will be welcome news in the Commonwealth. The consistency of My Dear has long been established, and her form points to the daughter of Beppo as of the staying order. On the preceding page there is a fine illustration of Gainsborough.

The nearer the approach of the Australian Jockey Club’s spring meeting the greater the interest. There will be much for New Zealanders therein though a little less for Aucklanders than was anticipated a few months ago, when the sinking of the Wimmera deprived the owners of the services of a few horses it was then intended to race in Australia. The presence of Desert Gold, Finmark, Estland, Kilhope, Killowen, Biplane, Gloaming, Almoner, Kilmoon, and other flat horses, and of the jumpers British Arch, Tararu Jack, St. Elmn and co., will invest the meeting with something more than usual interest for dwellers in the Dominion as well as followers of racing in other parts of the world, because at Randwick the horses of all the Spates are gathered and English horses are there to. meet them and fight for supremacy. There are a good many more English thoroughbreds there than New Zealand has sent, but whereas some of our best horses are there the imported horses have, with one or two exceptions, put up their best performances on Australian soil. The best do not represent quite top class English form and have not been handicapped to be quite so good as the best we have representing us. Still the meeting of the imported horses with those from the inter-States really makes the spring meetings at Randwick and in Victoria what they have become. At the Sydney Tattersail’s meeting held on Saturday, the Australian spring campaign so far as New Zealand interests are concerned opened auspiciously. The weight-for-age race, the well-established Chelmsford Stakes, run over a mile and aquarter, saw the colours of the Canterbury sportsman, Mr. G. D. Greenwood, carried eight lengths to the front by Gloaming, son of The Welkin and Light, who beat the English five-year-old horse Rebus—certainly one of the best performers of last season —also the well-per-formed four-year-old Kennaquhair and eighteen others, including Mr. T. H. Lowry’s four-year-old horse Estland, whom Davis may possibly not have had quite ready to do himself justice. There is nothing like a good start, however, and as the race was worth winning it would appear that none

of the five representatives of the Hawke’s Bay sportsman, all of which were eligible for nomination, were considered forward enough. That the race would have taken a lot of winning goes without saying, and Gloaming, whose first race it was, is clearly a very brilliant colt and possibly a good Derby proposition. He has classic and other engagements ahead.

The book programme of the Auckland Racing Club for the season which opens on November 9 is before us, and its pages reveal a very great deal, none more so than the one on which the table appears showing the added money since the year 1879-80, when £2250 was given in stakes for a summer and an autumn meeting. Three and four years later there were three meetings a year and the stakes on the fifth occasion had reached to £4575, and down to the year 189091 there were four meetings with a total of £7305 in stakes for that particular year, though the previous year there was a supplementary jubilee meeting which brought the stakes to £7760. For six seasons, from 1891-2 to 1896-7 there was a meeting held

in September and known as the first spring meeting, and this gave the club five race meetings a year, and the stakes were at the end of that period £11,545. For the twenty-one years following four meetings a year were held, but the number of days of racing underwent a reduction by two in 1911-12, and last year three more were taken off to comply with a Parliamentary decree, and the stakes, which had steadily increased from £13,450 in 1897-98 to £29,815 in 191011, were dropped £lOOO, only, however, to be increased largely from year to year, until in 1914-15 the figures stood at £41,450, and in 191617 £43,000 was given. This was the highest amount given by any club in New Zealand, but in proportion to the number of days and number of events on which the totalisator was used the club had not been giving so much money on an average as the Canterbury Jockey Club. Meanwhile, however, there was a large expenditure going on for improvements to the property year after year. With three days’ racing lopped off last year there was a drop of £8450, the spring, summer and winter meetings being reduced by £B7OO, while the prize money for the autumn meeting was increased by £250. The stakes given last year totalled £34,550, but still

gave a higher all-round average per race than in any previous year. This year, with the same number of races, the total is £37,000, and the average value of the races has not been attained by any club in the Dominion. This is satisfactory, but could only be done owing to the greater volume of business transacted per medium of the totalisator at Ellerslie than anywhere else and greater receipts from other sources. With three races worth lOOOsovs. each at the spring meeting—the Great Northern Guineas, Welcome Stakes, and Mitchelson Cup —a good start is to be made. The summer meeting, with the Great Northern Foal Stakes of lOOOsovs., Auckland Cup of 275050v5., Railway Handicap, Twenty-fourth Royal Stakes, Summer Cup, Auckland R.C. Handicap, each of lOOOsovs., and 45th Great Northern Derby, of 1500sovs., and other good races, takes some beating. The autumn meeting, with the Great Northern Champagne, Easter Handicap, Great Northern St. Leger and St. George’s Handicap, each of lOOOsovs., to say nothing of the Oaks and other well-endowed events, cannot fail to attract attention, and for a

wind-up of the season, the Great Northern Steeplechase meeting, with the G.N. Hurdle Race and G.N. Steeplechase Handicaps of 1500sovs. each, and other good jumping race prizes and two flat races worth 750sovs. each, will not be overlooked by owners.

Many racegoers in New Zealand wilt remember what a lot of opposition there was to the introduction of the. starting machine in England while it was being installed everywhere on. colonial racecourses. By some New Zealand clubs it was not taken on with confidence, and long after some of the leading clubs had given it a fair trial and were thoroughly satisfied, one occasionally heard prominent members of country clubs declaring that they preferred the old style with the flag. It takes some people a long time to get out of the old ruts. The starting of trotting races by machinery may have been thought of a long time ago, and perhaps would have been attempted if the races had been for horses starting from the same marks, or all together. It will come to that some day. We should have more races of that class before long. In the meantime handicap events will engage most attention, and. the racing must be under the yards

or seconds system and the starting must be under different methods until some of the clubs see eye to eye and decide upon uniformity and are able to shoulder the expense of installing machines. That is the one big drawback at the present time, though there are some clubs that have plenty of money that have not yet adopted the one system which has given the very greatest satisfaction in Auckland. They have tried many with varying . results and under different starters, and it is about time that the system which has been found to work so well at Alexandra Park should be given a fair trial on the leading southern courses. While on the subject of starting trotting and pacing events, we may mention that the Auckland Trotting Club has established a race which they evidently intend to stay. This is the Great Northern Trotting Derby, which was inaugurated last year. The prize for this year’s race is 500sovs., and those to follow will show substantial increases, 650sovs. and 7500v5. being the allotted amounts. A few years ago any clubs outside the Canterbury Jockey Club and Auckland Racing Club which announced such valuable

races for classic honours were credited with doing great services to the sport from the standpoint of breeders. Those who are trying to raise the standard in trotting and pacing in both islands must be favourably impressed with the efforts of the Auckland Trotting Club in that direction. This year the Auckland Trotting Cup is worth 135050v5., of which sum a clear thousand goes to the winner. It would seem only a matter of time for big things to be in store for the followers of the light harness sport in Auckland.

It seems like the irony of fate that Fisher, after getting home first in a jumpers’ flat race at Dannevirke, should be deprived of the race by coming in six ounces short of weight. This was a bit of real hard luck for his new owner. The shortage gave the race to Blackall, who has been a disappointing gelding and who only managed to win one race last season out of twenty-two starts, and who opened his season in the same race last year by running unplaced. Fisher has not won since January, 1917, and prior to that won in April, 1916. The sum total of his wins are two flat races and one hurdle event —one race at three years, one at five, and one at six years. He has started fortyfour times, but Blackall has run 65 times, and he gave promise of being a really good horse at an early stage of his career, only to run more and more disappointingly. He has won five races, or an average of one in thirteen, and has been placed nineteen times, and some, of the place money was from good races, including a second in the New Zealand Cup and another second in the Auckland Cup.

Marton and Dannevirke spring meetings, held in September, have been big successes from a racing and financial point of view, and so has the Amberley meeting, while the Egmont meeting is likely to be so, too. If the Thames or some other Auckland provincial club had elected to race ■this month, the result would have been highly satisfactory to the owners and the public, and could not well have been otherwise than very payable, and, while relieving the situation by affording a welcome break from a long cessation of racing in the most important racing province in the North Island, would have advanced a lot of horses a stage further towards fitness to compete at the Avondale and Auckland spring meetings in November. The horses that have been raced and those that are to race at meetings during the present month should all be benefited thereby. All owners cannot, however, undertake the long-distance journeys from their homes; indeed, many only race for the pleasure of seeing their horses run at meetings patronised by their immediate friends and relatives, and have no desire to run them at meetings held where they themselves cannot make it convenient to attend.