LEADING AUSTRALIAN SPORTSMAN’S COMPLAINT.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1484, 3 October 1918, Page 9

LEADING AUSTRALIAN SPORTSMAN’S COMPLAINT.

In a farewell speech at Kalgoorlie, upon his retirement from racing, the Western Australian sportsman, Mr. P. A. Connolly, made charges against some of the men connected with racing, and expressed his dissatisfaction with the officials. Mr. Connolly, in responding to the Mayor’s expression of regret at his retirement, said he had been for 24 years in Western Australia, and his business career was open to anyone. The only people who tried to “pick him out” were certain officials, but there was no justification for their action. He had not run about racecourses tilling people his horses

were going to win. When it did not suit him to tell people his business he. told them nothing, and no one could blame him on that account. He had many friends, but there were men connected with racing who were not clean sports, and he would not be associated with them. When they could not “get at” him, they tried to “get at” his horses or the riders, and he was sorry to say they sometimes succeeded. During the past three or four years he had lost £lO,OOO at the game, but he was not downhearted. He intended to devote attention to horse breeding, and hoped to make a success of it. After the war he might race again if there were new officials in charge, but he did not intend to be kicked about without justification, as had been the case for the past year or two.

Len Want, a Sydney trainer, has Mr. T. H. Lowry’s horses staying at his stables, and he thus referred to the fact when/ speaking to “Milroy” of the “SydCSy Mail”:—“I have one (Estland) in my stables that has beaten Biplane, and another (meaning Desert Gold) that the Biplane people are- very much afraid of.”