THE CLUBMAN

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1483, 26 September 1918, Page 8

THE CLUBMAN

The New Zealand Cup nominations, which were due on Friday night, were not made known on Saturday morning, as the time for receiving them was extended owing to delays reported on the wires from various centres. This course was adopted in accordance with an existing rule. The time was extended until 10 o’clock on Saturday morning, and so we can conclude that none were missed. The nominations number thirty-five, and represent pretty well all that could be got with so many horses away campaigning in Australia. There are .so many long-distance handicaps during the season, and many of them of good value, that owners are not so keen nowadays on having their horses prepared so early for this particular race. Consequently, with plenty of special and more suitable races for three-year-olds, there have been proportionately. fewer of that age entered in recent years than was the case from twenty to twenty-five years ago. At one time there were so few really good prizes offering that the New Zealand Cup drew an entry from most of the stables of any note, and there were usually from a dozen to fifteen or sixteen rising three-year-olds entered. This time there are only two. Another thing, the nominations were taken in the winter until recently, and not as now only a matter of a little over six weeks ahead, and so owners know by the time the nomina'ions close that it is inadvisable to bother with some of the horses for such a severe race. From two to three decades ago some of the old-time trainers would have put questions to the horses under their care quite two months before, to know whether they were worth going on with and backing for thei race. Many a Cup horse was well tried as long as that ahead for the purpose. Then there were race meetings, too, at which many were well tested and run into form before the day.

Altogether the nominations for the New Zealand Cup of 1918 are numerically not quite as large as could have been anticipated. The practice of making forecasts as to the probable entrants seems to be dying out, and perhaps some of those engaged would not have been seriously thought of. One is inclined to the belief that the horses of to-day from which the enrry has been drawn are not as good as in many previous years, when horses of the robust Traducer and Musket types were in evidence, but the fact remains that the winners of the last decade or two have a better average in the matter of making time over the distance, and, in fact, some of the winners during the last few years have run over the same course faster than their predecessors. The two last to score brought the time to 3min. 25 l-ssec. This is within l-ssec. of the time credited to Bridge, which was generally discredited, however, when it was reported. The course has not undergone any process of alteration for a long time; indeed, the starts have been from the same place,, commencing on the straight course, for many years, and not on the bend, which made no very material difference however.

The New Zealand Cup race was first called the Canterbury Jockey Club Handicap, and it is the oldest handicap race in the Calendar, dating back to 1865, in which year and the following year the distance was a mile and a-half. The race next November will be the fifty-third, or the fifty-first since it was run over two miles. Though big weights were carried by some of the early winners in Rob Roy, Nowmahal, Knottingly, Peeress, Tambourini and Guy Fawkes, ranging from 9.7 to 10.6, not since Guy Fawkes won in 1876 with 9.10 -has more than 8.9 been won with. Le Loup, Tasman, Vanguard and Lady Zetland each won with that impost. Grip and Waiuku had 8.6 each, and Grand Rapids 8.5, but on thirty-nine other occasions there had been no winner with more than the 8.1 carried by Menelaus last year. No horse has carried as much weight as that in any two-mile handicap event in New Zealand or Australasia and trav-

elled so fast. This by many will be accepted as evidence that as stayers we have in New Zealand some useful ones. The Auckland Racing Club’s course at Ellerslie has -been improved considerably at different times, and during the early part of last season especially. Last December Fiery Cross carried 8.8 and covered the two miles in the Auckland Cup in 3min. 25 4-ssec. —a course, record and a time record for a two-mile handicap with so much weight. Thus we have two performances that will take some beating in the present season, and another one over two miles is that of Warstep at weight for age with 8.12 in the Trentham Gold Cup, at Trentham, in 3min. 24sec., which may stand a long time. This is an Australasian record, be it remembered. The course when at its best has no equal in New Zealand and lends itself to record-making, especially when the fields are not large and the horses are classy. Sasanof, a Melbourne Cup winner; Menelaus, who won the N.Z. Cup last year; and Client, who faded out of the race in the concluding stages but was a fitter

horse in the autumn, represent the best class on form engaged this year. Amongst the notable race winners engaged in the N.Z. Cup are Sasanof (Melbourne Cup), Menelaus (N.Z. Cup), Depredation (Auckland Cup), John Barleycron (A.R.C. and C.J.C. Handicaps), Teka (C.J.C. Metropolitan Handicap), Tressida (G.N. Oaks), Devotion (C.J.C. Oaks), Glendower (C.J.C. Great Autumn Handicap), Rorke’s Drift (Dunedin Cup, D.J.C. Handicap, D.J.C. Birthday Handicap twice), Client (Wanganui Cup twice, Wanganui Stakes, Hawke’s Bay Cup), Margerine (Dunedin Cup and North Otago Cup), Killard (D.J.C. Handicap), and quite a lot of winners of important races over shorter and middle distances, including a few that raced prominently without winning over long journeys. Some have possibilities for long races though we are sure to hear the usual cry that it is the worst lot on record in the matter of quality that Mr. Henrys has been asked to handicap.

Mr. G. D. Greenwood has shown himself to be a good patron of racing since he started. He has followed on

the lines of the late Mr. G. G. Stead largely by laying himself out to try and win the classic races —Derby and weight-for-age and special-weight events —rather than handicaps, and has not raced his horses all over the country trying to farm up small handicap races, as some owners do, and win money by betting heavily on them. His horses are occasionally entered in New Zealand and also in Australia for some of the minor handicap races, however. This year he noriiinated his recent Chelmsford Stakes winner,' Gloaming, and Molyneaux for the Novice Handicap at Tattersall’s spring meeting, N.S.W. Neither had started in public, yet Mr. Daly differentiated between them by handicapping Gloaming to be 101 b. better than Molyneaux. This was not right, and in taking track form Mr. Daly followed a practice that has brought a hornet’s nest about the ears of many a handicapper before to-day. It is a practice that is certainly not defensible, and was so carried,on at one time in this country that several clubs passed special rules on the subject, having for tneir object an in-

struction to their handicappers that all beginners of a like age should be treated alike. This on the face of it seems the only fair way as between young horses the property of different owners. When handicappers attempt to adjust the weights on private form or on tracks achievements they have witnessed or heard of, a bad precedent is established. It is, furthermore, not safe to go on pedigrees. Races presumably are for thoroughbred horses, and if half-breds are nominated they should not be made a liberal allowance from better-bred ones, because it is often as hard to judge on pedigree as it is on appearances. Track form is the more reliable when it is known what the weights are, but with gallops in private the handicapper has nothing to do. Once admit that he has and he might want to handicap the horses of particular stables to most weight because they had provided many more winners than others. No two and three-year-olds that have never started should be treated differently. Whether horses three years old and upwards entered for the first time should be handicapped on w.f.a. terms is another matter. The handi-

capper might be allowed a little latitude in cases of that sort. Occasionally horses are not raced until four of five years old, for the reason more often than not that their owners have thought it advisable not to do anything with them until they have had a chance to grow, but sometimes they have been tried earlier and been found to be fast and promising, when an accident or some ailment which horseflesh is heir to has caused them to be retired for a time. The mere fact that horses are. entered for the first time when four or five years old disposes handicappers to think perhaps less of them on that account, and it has sometimes happened that the older previously unraced maiden candidates have been given less weight than the younger ones. In handicapping thus a risk is taken. In Gloaming’s case the handicapper clearly took reported track form as his guide, which is quite unfair, and he was placed above 59 other horses, nearly all performers. Molyneaux, his stable mate, received 101 b.

The new totalisator being installed at Ellerslie will cost £lO,OOO, and will be a twenty-three horse one at the spring meeting, and can thereafter be enlarged if required at a further cost. In the meantime, when the fields reach to greater dimensions some of the horses will be coupled. That will occur sometimes, and there will always be dissatisfaction on the part of owners, if not so on that of investors. There are occasions when the owners cannot be considered, but it is very rough on an owner who has an outsider good enough to win when it is bracketed with a favourite and pays only a very short price. Then again the bracketting of horses is not as_ satisfactory as it should be. The Auckland Racing Club and other clubs, of course, know this, but they have nearly all had to do it in the pas:, and the experience at Ellerslie will not be new. Other New Zealand clubs have entered into contracts for machines constructed on the same lines, and the Wellington R.C., Wanganui J.C., and Manawatu R.C. are some of those mentioned. The Wellington Racing Club will be conten: for the time being with a twenty-horse totalisator, and it will cost £7OOO or thereabout, but whether the Manawatu and Wanganui clubs will have machines of the same or of lesser capacity we have not heard. These clubs have not had quite such large fields on an average as the Auckland or Wellington clubs. It is a notable fact that both the Manawatu RacingClub and the Wanganui Jockey Club have been giving all their profits of racing to patriotic purposes, but it would now seem probable that they will have to call a halt and provide up-to-date machinery for coping with the business that is to be done in future. The Wanganui Jockey Club have been talking of having a new course, and a new totalisator system will pay, though it must be allowed that the working of the totalisators at Wanganui in the past has been of the very satisfactory order. It is thought that a good many clubs will go in for the same style of totalisators as the Auckland. Wellington and other clubs mentioned. It is understood that the New Zealand rights have been secured in some way. Just how or by whom we have no definite information. The men who came over to instal the machinery for the Auckland R.C. and to work it at the springmeeting are to see the summer meeting of the Auckland R.C. through as well, and the Auckland R.C. will take the machines over in February. It is stated that another company has offered a totalisator to the Auckland Racing Club which is claimed to be superior to anything yet invented, and for half the price the latest one is costing the A.RC. Now rhat large sums of money are being handled by the clubs and some of them are well off, there are lots of clever men working out schemes to provide machinery that will, it is expected, revolutionise the totalisator business. In due course we shall hear more about them.