THE CLUBMAN

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1521, 19 June 1919, Page 8

THE CLUBMAN

The big races in England are being decided as week succeeds week. Nearly three months of the season of 1919 have run their course, and if some of the fields have not been quite so large as the managers of racing could desire, it must be admitted that they have been surprisingly good when it is remembered that only about six months has passed since the war terminated. With plenty of horses in England, though many of them could not have been in great condition, it

did not take racing men long to get into their stride, once all or most restrictions were removed. The tendency may be to overdo the sport. From all accounts that come to hand it would seem that the attendances at

meetings in the Homeland have been very large indeed at most of them. If the Derby day assemblage was below the records of many previous ones, that must have been expected. It will take some years before the normal state of racing is reached, so far as huge attendances at leading meetings are concerned. The good prices realised at some of the bloodstock sales shows the great vitality of the sport.

The long-established Manchester Cup, run over a mile and a-half, and for many years known as the Man- „ Chester Trades Cup, which dates back ’to 1834, was decided on Friday. In the years 1915 and 1916 there was no race on account of the war, but in 1917 Mr. Sol Joel’s Blue Danube, by St. Denis, won, beating Mr. J. Shepherd’s three-year-old By Jingo, son of Aquascutum and Minnesota, by a neck. Next year, 1918, By Jingo won the race by a neck, carrying 8.4 and beating Planet (8.13), full-brother to

the Waikato Racing Club’s imported horse Day Comet, Blue Danube being amongst the other starters. By Jingo and Planet had previously met in a mile race for a prize of £lOl with the same result. There is the old saying about horses for courses, and

it can be varied by saying “horses

for particular races and certain distances.” By Jingo seems partial to a

He won the Man-

Chester Cup on Friday for a second time, and beat in that race Aynsley, a son of ’ Picton, who last year won the October Handicap over the same distance. Happy Man, by Desman, got third, and this is a three-year-old who last year won the Ditch Mile at Newmarket, showing staying form. Last year the Manchester Cup was worth 1270sovs. The race has previously been won by the same horse twice. Rambling Katie in 1901 and 1902, at four and five years old, scored, and in 1861 and 1862 Ivanhoff won at three and four years old, on the last occasion carrying 8.12, the same weight as. Grovanni, the first winner, a six-year-old, carried. Rataplan, at four years old, carried 9.3, and 8.12 was won with on four other occasions down to 1877, or in the first 43 years.

The minimum was as low as 4st. in the Manchester Cup in 1851, which weight Paquetta, a three-year-old, is credited with, having carried when she won. In the year 1880 Isonomy put all performances in the shade in connection with the race by carrying 9.12 and beating a field of twenty others. It was at the time considered a tremendous performance, and is still referred to as such, and will no doubt be recalled in the English papers this week. Isonomy was giving a lot of weight away to The Abbott, a three-year-old, who many at the time thought very unlucky to lose the race. Isonomy was a great horse, whose weight-carrying, good qualities did not rest upon one such performance. A horse called Carlton later won with the same impost the Manchester November Handicap, and thus made for himself, on top of other successes, a great name. The distance of this race ran to a mile and three-quarters, however, and such horses as Belphoebe (9.5), Corry Boy (9.10), Ravensbury (9.4) and St. Maclou (9.4) each won that race, which, being later in the season, was an advantage to horses in making big achievements. So far, however, as the Manchester Cup is concerned,

Isonomy’s performance with. 9.12 at five years old stands out as the one before all others. By Jingo is evidently a good handicap horse. Though his successes have been few, he has not raced often, probably on account of the war, and he may on that account last longer.

The two Gisborne meetings held last week gave a variety of racing such as has not been witnessed in the Bays at one time previously. All sorts of races were provided, and it was a bit of bad luck that kept a number of Auckland horses and their connections from assisting to make the meetings more successful than they were. The want of shipping space upset the calculations of a number of owners and trainers who had intended being on hand. The first in were first served so far as accommodation was concerned, and two or three horses at least were shut out

that might have done some service for their owners from this quarter. Gisborne horses, however, cannot be held cheap in these days, nor has that been so for a considerable time. The champion of the meeting amongst the flat horses was the bay gelding Gazique, by imported Gazeley, who as a weight-carrier has always been good, and has quite surpassed himself at the meeting under notice. His form only goes to show what a good serviceable horse can do when not stoutly opposed. Amongst the horses he met he stood out as a great master of weight, just as did Parisian Diamond at the Great Northern meeting of the Auckland Racing Club, yet neither of these horses would be any use to such classy racehorses as Gloaming, Desert Gold and Sasanof, the cracks of the. season amongst those above two years of age. The carrying of big weights by their horses and racing under varied conditions and saddling them up twice a

day may be treated lightly by some owners. Such was the case in the early days amongst those who had horses that stood out from those of their rivals, but it is not conducive to the retention of speed to keep racing good ones under big imposts. Gazique is a good gelding who some people would say has been wasted as a racing machine. Though he has won a fair amount in stakes, some owners would have got one or two big races with a horse like him, and with them a bit of money besides the stakes. Gazique had to work hard to earn the prize money he secured in his three starts last week. On his dam’s side we find the names of good horses. St. Paul got his mother, and he was a wonderful little horse under weight, and his granddam was a half-sister to Machine Gun, Launceston, Florrie, Vandal and Rubin, each pretty good ones, the first-named a weight-carry-ing, short-distance .horse with a re-

cord performance over five furlongs with a big impost, and quite a number of brilliant and high-class achievements, all obtained after his wind became affected, too. Rubina, his dam and the ancestress of Gazique, was herself a good performer, winner of some good races in the Dominion aftei- being brought from Australia. * • * • The advisableness of altering the rules of racing bearing on the bracketing of leased horses has long been forced upon some people, more particularly those who lease horses and race some themselves. The whole system of bracketing horses at all is wrong. Each starter in a race is supposed to be run on its merits, and those owners who in these days start two in a race do so with the idea of securing first and second money, or two of the prizes usually attached to races, or because they have some doubt as to which is the better of their horses at the allotted weights.

If any bracketing is ’done at all, it should not go beyond coupling the horses of an owner who starts more than one horse. Under betting conditions in other parts of the world it has never been the practice. Each horse is supported as if it were racing independent of any other runner. Backers have the chance of supporting horses separately, according to their fancy, but on the machine they back a horse they fancy and must in doing so back another for which they have no regard whatever. We shall surely not be long before we have totalisators to deal with the very largest of fields and to do away j/ith the bracketing of horses altogether. To avoid the bracketing business it is well known that subterfuges have been resorted to on occasions in the past. The owners who it is thought necessary should have a check placed upon them when starting more than one in a race are surely few and far between. The public interests are pretty well looked after in these days by the stipendiary officials, who, whatever their limitations, have, it must be acknowledged, done good service. The bracketing of horses nowadays is more often done in the interests of the clubs themselves than of anyone else, as they have not been in a position to cope with the big fields in any other way. If the machines in use will not permit of the horses being dealt with separately when there are big acceptances and the probability of big fields, let the fields be divided, as in Australia. The business is managed there. Why not in New Zealand? Surely we can get out of an old rut if it is in the interests of the sport that we should do so.

The appointment of the Hon. W. H. Herries by the committee of the Auckland Racing Club to act in conjunction with the Hon. E. Mitchelson, the club’s president, on the New Zealand Racing Conference, is paying that well-known sportsman a compliment, and was evidently intended as such. Though the hon. gentleman is not a member of the Auckland Racing Club, he has been patron of a number of the country clubs of Auckland for many years, and rendered good service to the sport as a breeder in the Te Aroha district. Twenty-one years ago he was elected, on the nomination of the Thames Jockey Club, as one of the country clubs’ delegates, and held the position without a break until this season. Though now representing the leading metropolitan body in the North Island, he will be in a still stronger position than ever to further the interests of the country clubs, and of sporting institutions generally in the province and out of it. The Racing Board of Control is fortunate in having men of mature experience to guide its destinies. The Auckland province will be well represented by the Hons. Mitchelson and Herries and Messrs. G. Vercoe and L. Nelson, for the metropolitan and country clubs respectively. * ♦ ♦ • Revolt against law and order and against constitutional authority is to be regretted. A Home paper says that like an epidemic it has spread over the world and reached the domestic realm of boxing. The following from the “Sporting Life” would be well for some people with tendencies to behave in an un-English and an unsportsmanlike manner to remember: —“It has always been an article of faith with us that our games inculcated a spirit of fairplay and of sportsmanship; that they taught us to bear ourselves modestly in the hour of triumph and to accept defeat with good grace and a smile. But our faith has been given some rude shocks recently; never before, indeed, have we seen and heard of so many unsportsmanlike demonstrations at boxing shows as during the last few weeks. If a referee should commit an error of judgment, is it the proper sporting thing to throw missiles at him, to boo him, and to create pandemonium generally? Have we forgotten all the sporting traditions which for centuries have made the British race unique among all the nations of the world?”