Turf Topics

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

Turf Topics

No Auckland-trained horses are engaged at the Otaki meeting.

The one-time prominent Waikato horse owner Mr. J. Allwill has lost his son John in action.

The consistent Campfire mare Lady Louisa has been retired to the stud and visits Boniform.

G'azeley had a useful four-year-old representative in Sabine, winner of the Hack Welter, at Dannevirke.

Mr. Jack Henrys, the well-known handicapper and son of Mr. J. E. Henrys, lost his life on Friday through a motor accident in the Wairarapa.

There are some heavy pieces of machinery to be handled in the setting up of the new totalisator at Ellerslie.

Mr. Alt Gray, a long-time leading football enthusiast and rowing man in Wanganui, lost his youngest son. Melville, in the recent offensive.

F. Tonge has been engaged to train a few horses at Bruntwood for Mr. F. C. Loughlin. One of the nfimber will be Middle Mark, by King Mark from Centre, now four years old. The thoroughbred filly presented by Mr. W. C. Ring to be raffled for the Hineuera Red Cross campaign was won by Mr. Norman Bruce, of Hamilton, the winning number being 159.

Mr. T. H. Lowry, the owner of Desert Gold, has won about £90,000 in stakes in New Zealand and Australia since he started racing, or during the past 23 years.

Some of the gets of Sanquhar (1). by Santry (3) from Valve, dam of Vancluse, by Velasquez (11) from Gas, dam of Cicero and Bezonian, are now at Riccarton being prepared for two-year-old engagements.

Mr. Scholium has a two-year-old gelding at Morrinsville by Waverley from the old trotting mare Dolly Grey. He is a big, loose youngster, and may make into a useful horse when he has age to help him.

There were forty-two entrants for the Trial Plate at Dannevirke, and a big field of starters. Mandrake, the second favourite, scored, and was extensively backed by those who bet away from the course. Mandrake is a son of Hymettus and Mandola, bred at Karamu, Hawke’s Bay.

Though the Auckland Trotting Club’s Great Northern Trotting Cup is worth 135050v5., the Canterbury N.Z. Metropolitan Trotting Club’s New Zealand Trotting Cup has not a single Auckland representative nominated this year. This is significant. The best Aucklander in the light of the form shown by Steel Bell last year would have no chance on the limit.

Drs. Grant and Murphy have been appointed honorary surgeons by the Auckland Trotting Club. Mr. Fred. Yonge, secretary to the Otahuhu Trotting Club, is on the mend, and has been at his office at intervals during the week.

' Defunct Multifid had a winner and a good dividend payer in Multaine in the Spring Handicap at Dannevirke. Mr. Kemball’s mare is from Lady Ainslie, a mare by Grafton that raced with some success in Poverty Bay. She was bred by Mr. C. J. Parker. O. Madden, the well-known English jockey, who is now 45, was among those who recently made an application for temporary exemption from military service. He claimed a further medical examination, and this was granted.

Bracken, who is to ride the New Zealander Almoner in the A.J.C. Derby, is to ride George Graves in the Epsom Handicap. It is five years since he won that race on Aleconner and two years since he won on Woorak.

When Mandrake, by Hymettus from Mandola, won the Trial Stakes at Dannevirke, beating thirty-one others, Mr. D. Wilkie’s three-year-old was coupled on the machine with March On, who would probably have been a big outsider. Willys Knight, who ran second, is by Maniapoto, who is now located at Clevedon.

w Mr. Wm. Abbott, the well-known trotting enthusiast, has been confined to the Waikato Hospital at Hamilton for some time. There he recently underwent an operation. His friends will be pleased to learn he is making satisfactory progress towards recovery.

Sasanof, after winning Sydney Tattersall’s Chelmsford Stakes, won the A.J.C. Spring Stakes. Duke Foote won each race 'tw-ice.

Australian racegoers will be wondering whether R. J. Mason is now training in Gloaming a colt good enough to win the A.J.C. Derby, as did Biplane last year and Noctuiform in 1905, when Sungod (in the same stable) ran second in record time for the race, which time still stands.

In addition to the imported horses Day Comet and Archistown standing in the Waikato there is another Eng-lish-bred horse, Quin Abbey; the Gosoon horse Spalpeen, imported from Australia; Winterbourne, Potoa, Bunyan (sire of Bedford), and a few other thoroughbred sires owned by private breeders. It is hard to say just how many mares are being bred from in the Waikato, but probably not more than 300 all told, and the English horses recently imported will get a fourth of them. When the writer met R. J. Mason after his return from Australia he stated that Prince Viridis was the best of the three-year-olds he had seen there and a wiry customer that might develop greater staying qualities. The, Prince Foote colt is evidently. training on all right, judging from his win in the Spring Handicap at Tattersall’s.

Arch Marella is a consistent customer. The son of Marble Arch and Marella ran up to previous form when he finished second to Prince Viridis in the Spring Handicap at Tattersall’s meeting in Sydney on Saturday.

Gloaming’s time (Imin 52sec) for the Chelmsford Stakes at Randwick constitutes a record for the race, beating that of Perkeo, in 1908, and of Woorak, in 1914, by a quarter of a second. What makes the performance so remarkable is that it was the colt’s first race in public.

The way in which Gloaming squandered his field in the Chelmsford Stakes at Randwick makes it appear that the son of The Welkin and Light, who, by the way, is well named, is quite as good as some of his early admirers in Canterbury expected him to be last season.

The 60, 20, 20 scheme with the tote seems to be peculiarly suitable for pony courses and the sportsmen who patronise these establishments. At a recent meeting at Ascot (Sydney), according to the “Bulletin,” there was a record turnover for courses in New South Wales other than Randwick — £18,264. There were a few things incidental. One was that not a single stake-winner got off with £lOO. Mos: of them got less than £5O. Another was that the Government appropriated £1275 from the day’s sport through the piratical 7 per cent, raid on the machine, and the club £450 —tasty additions to the ticket tax and bookmakers’ fees. Twelve races were run for £720, divided among 36 place-getters. Now, what sort of game is that to play, and the State to give its blessing to besides taking, one way and another, over £l5OO

from it? Meanwhile the attempt to “improve sport” and “encourage the thoroughbred” by Government annexation of double the sum appropriated by the prads seems an interestingexperiment.

Amongst the visitors to Wellington at the week-end (writes our correspondent) was Mr. Allen Donald, a well-known steward of the Wairarapa Racing Club and a representative of the Donald Estate, Featherston, who came down to the city to ship the Clydedale stallion, Laird Buchyvies, across Cook Strait. The sire, who is a four-year-old and one of the best bred stock of his kind to be found in New Zealand, has been purchased by Messrs. Pike Brothers, of Blenheim, who will have him at the disposal of breeders in the Marlborough district this season.

Only a few prominent riders keep an accurate record of their mounts, says a writer in the “Australasian.” One of them is Myles Connell. In a great set-to with D. O’Connor, who was on the well-backed Salary, Connell beat him by a short head in the second division of the Novice. Handicap at the Maitland meeting. Connell’s mount was Nalkabu, by Martian from Wet Day. In 1900, Connell started to keep a record of his mounts. This win on Saturday makes his 990th since he started the diary.

It is a remarkable record of a painstaking, careful, and highly . respected jockey, who will, with a little luck, most assuredly achieve this season the honour of having ridden a thousand winners.

Hallowmas, son of Martagon, was represented at the Dannevirke meeting by Hallow, a three-year-old gelding from White Crane, by Royal Artillery from the imported mare Stressa, who was by the Bend Or horse Orvieto from the St. Simon mare St. Mildred. Hallow got third in the Trial Stakes, in which there were 32 starters. He is owned by Mr. Newton King, of New Plymouth. Another three-year-old that created a favourable impression was Maiora, by > the same sire from Fairy Gold, dam of defunct Gold Fran. Maiora ' out-' classed the field in the Umutaroa Welter, which he won from 14 others.