THE CLUBMAN

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1567, 6 May 1920, Page 8

THE CLUBMAN

The visit of the Prince of Wales to the Commonwealth is going to be honoured in true Australian style by a number of race meetings. One of them, the Australian Jockey Club, is going to put on a rare bill-of-fare. The Prince of Wales Cup, with a gold cup valued at lOOsovs, added to 2000 sovs, is the leading item. The Chester Plate, of six furlongs, is worth lOOOsovs, two races of 500sovs each for two-year-olds, two steeplechases, each worth lOOOsovs, and two hurdle races of lOOOsovs, and two middledistance handicaps of 500sovs, and the same amount for the June Stakes are the items on the programme. Ten thousand pounds is to be given altogether in addition to the lOOsovs Cup to commemorate the Princes’ visit. The A.J.C. do things well. A big meeting is assured. Since writing the above, a cable has announced that, the added money to the Australia Jockey Club’s Derby of 1921 will be £6OOO, the St. Leger £2OOO, the Epsom Handicap of 1920 *3OOO, and the Sires’ Produce Stakes or 1922 £4OOO.

English racing results of importance will continue to reach us now 'that the spring meetings are well under way. The Two Thousand Guineas was decided on April 28, and the grey colt Tetratema, owned by Major D. McCalmont, and got by The Tetrarch, a grey son of Roi Herode, from Scotch Gift, and generally believed to be the best two-year-old in England last year, won, this making his sixth success out of seven starts. He won all five of the races he started for at two years old, but in the Greenham Stakes, at Newbury, nearly three weeks earlier, he suffered a surprise defeat at the hands of Sir E. Hulton’s Silvern, a bay colt by Polymelus from Silver Fowl, who won on two occasions last season, and had a second and an unplaced performance. That result dimmed the career of Tetratema, but whether Silvern met him in the Two Thousand does not appear. Allenby, the runner-up, is by Bayardo from Tagalie, and a bay in colour, who had a second and a win last year for two starts, the win being in the Spring Stakes at Newmarket, when he beat Marcia Blanche and Reine de Neige, the half sister to Snow King, Rapiere, Silvern and 10 others. The runner-up, Paragon, by Radium from Quintessence, won twice, was twice second, and once unplaced at two years old. Tagalie, dam of Allenby, ridden by L. H. Hewitt, won the One Thousand Quineas, and ridden by J. Reiff the Derby in 1912, and Quintessence, dam of Paragon, in 1903, won the One Thousand Guineas. Tetratema’s wins are the National Breeders’ Produce, MoleCourt, Champagne and Imperial Produce Stakes, Middle Park Plate, and the first “leg” of “the triple crown,” the Two Thousand Guineas. The second “leg” of the classic treble, the Derby, will be run on Wednesday, June 2, and it will be interesting to note whether Tetratema will stay and win, as have so few of the same colour.

The One Thousand Guineas was run on Friday, and won by the Polymelus —Baroness La Fleche filly Cinna, who started three times last season, beating 18 others in the Norfolk Plate at Newmarket in May of last year, following that performance up by running second in the New Stakes, a much more important race, at Ascot, in which, with odds laid on her, she was beaten by five lengths by Orpheus, a good colt by Orby. Her next defeat was in the Bretty Stakes, for fillies, by Lemonade, a filly by Lemberg. Cicerole, by Cicero, who finished second to Cinria, won three races last season, was once second and three times third. Cinna, who belongs to Sir R. W. B. Jardine, and Cicerole. owned by Baron E. de Rothschild, are in the Oaks, to be run on June 4, two days after the ( Derby. It is interesting here to note that Baroness la Fleche, dam of Cinna, is a daughter of La Fleche, the grand dam of Arrowsmith, who, though not a good performer in

England at two and three years old, has developed into a very useful one since coming to New Zealand, just as some others imported to the colonies have done. He was purchased with a double object, i.e., for racing and for his blood. Bowman, Arrowsmith’s brother, was a stayer, and a good horse, and was purchased for a stud in Australia at the dispersal of the late Mr. W. J. Larnach’s stud. The successes of Arrowsmith in New Zealand, and Cinna in England will be pleasing to the owner of Bowman, and to at least two of our stud masters. Mr. J. Paterson’s One -Tree Hill stud horse Thurnham is by John O’Gaunt, also a son of La Fleche, while Mr. Gaine Carrington’s • imported horse Polydamon, located in Gisborne, is by Cinna’s sire Polymelus, whose granddam, Quiver, was the dame of La Fleche and three-quarter sister to Musket. The Hawke’s Bay Jockey Club’s autumn meeting, from a racing point

of view, was a decided success, there were so many excellently-contested races and very close finishes, including a dead-heat. The result of the Hawke’s Bay Stakes between Mr. A. Alexander’s brilliant mare Silver Link (9.12) and Mr. A. B. Williams’ Humbug (8.4) was. almost as close, and will be regarded as the most important. Silver Link is the first of her age to win the race, no four-year-old having previously won. Two year olds have scored the most frequently. They have won fourteen times, and three-year-olds nine, while there was a dead-heat between a two-year-old and a three-year-old for one of the twenty-three races decided prior to last week. At one stage the extreme penalty was 181 b., and that did not stop Dqsert Gold, but Silver Link’s 141 b. penalty gave her the biggest weight ever carried in the race, and good two-year-old as Humbug is, the 141 b. just settled him.. The Hawke’s Bay Stakes was nevet won by a bad one; indeed, has been remarkable for the successes of really first-class performers. Royal Artillery and Hymestra hold the time record of Imin. 20sec., and Hymestra’s performance in 1918 was a sterling one for a three-year-old with 9.8. It should be mentioned that Silver Link, who won under 9.12, is the first winner whose ancestry cannot be traced far.. The dam of Sharkie, ancestress of Advance and so many good ones, was brought from Twofold Bay, N.S.W.

The running of Silver Link in the Hastings Stakes and of Humbug in the same race, and in a lesser degree of Golden Bubble, who had no penalty at Hawke’s Bay, and the form shown by Arrowsmith at Ellerslie and at the Manawatu meeting, and of Amythas at the same fixture goes to indicate what good horses can do when well over distances that suit them. All going to the post, the Marlborough Stakes at the Canterbury Jockey Club’s meeting in honour of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, that race should be interesting. Arrowsmith should be very fit for the racing he has been getting, which has been confined to one race per meeting. Sasanof will take a power of beating, if as well as he was at the C.J.C. Easter meeting, and with Amythas there as well, with others nominated, the race should be the event of the season. Karo has not raced for some time, but Mason may have her ready to take part, and if so she can be depended upon to run a good mile. Silver Link]

should stay better now than previously, and she got a good six and a-half furlongs in the Hastings Stakes with 9.12 on her back, and a fast mile should not be beyond her powers at this season of the year. It is to be hoped that the owners of the horses named, and of Hetaua, Sunart and the two-year-olds Right and Left and Fabrinade will have them all on hand to do battle on May 15. The weights will be as follows: .Sasanof and Arrowsmith 9.0, Karo and Silver Link 8.12, Amythas, Hetaua, Golden Bubble 8.9, Sunart 8.7, Right and Left and Fabrinade 7.3.

The weights for the handicaps for the Royal meeting referred to in the foregoing, and to be held on May 15, were issued on Saturday, two days before they were expected, and have given followers of the sport something further to talk about, though the weight-for-age race is the one which is likely to be most discussed by those who are keen on doubles and pre-post business. It would have been interesting if we could have had Mr. Henrys’ estimate of a number of other of the Dominion’s best handicap horses, not entered for the chief and middle-dis-tance race, in which Sasanof heads the list with 10.7. To a good one that is not a prohibitive weight at this season of the year, when horses that have been raced at not too frequent intervals are sometimes caught

at their very best. The good ones L have been conspicuous performers during the past month or two, carrying tidy imposts, not only in New ! Zealand, but in Australia, where the handicappers, with superior class ■ horses in greater number than we 1 have to deal with, are not slow in 1 apportioning the successful horses : their full deserts, and are not quick ■ in dropping the weights when once a bit of form has been displayed. Sasanof, on his form at Riccarton at Easter, where he won over a mile and a-quarter and also the Great •Autumn Handicap, over a mile and a-half, could not have been allotted less, but his presence is looked for in the Marlborough Stakes, and his owner, prior to the Hawke’s Bay meeting last week, is reported to have said that the son of Martian was doing all right. No gelding has won more money in stakes in the Dominion or in Australia, and there is every prospect of further additions to his long winning list. A light-fleshed gelding, with frictionless

action, he only wants good ground to gallop over, for his weak-looking forelegs—and he pulled up lame on one of them in October last after running in the Randwick Plate against the cracks of Australia on w.f.a. terms. On his return to New Zealand he underwent repairs, but has come up smiling, and has done a number of tasks set him with all credit, and though the longer distance races are to his liking, being a genuine stayer, he should be able to test the best of the milers. It is to be hoped that there will be a good all round response from owners, and that the fields will average well.