TURF TOPICS

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1567, 6 May 1920, Page 9

TURF TOPICS

Silver Link is racing better than ever.

Mr. J. Glen, for many years secretary to the Nelson Jockey Club, is dead.

The death of Mr. W. R. Kemball’s Multaine from pneumonia is reported from the Wairarapa.

Food supplies were reported to be low in Rotorua on Saturday as the result of the railway dislocation.

H. Gray has been receiving a lot of kudos for his riding. What about A. J. McFlinn? ■ The well-known trotting performer Moneymaker has been purchased by a patron of J. Bryce’s stable.

A number of coming two-year-olds are being exercised at Ellerslie by their trainers.

A great race for the Hawke’s Bay Stakes between Silver Link (9.12), Humbug (8.1), and Golden > Bubble (8.8), heads separating the trio. Bonnetter, who Mr. G. Stead sold to Mr. W. R. Kemball for 600 guineas, has about won her purchase price back for the Wairarapa owner.

Kerehone and Hessian, General Stephen and Multiplane, Glenspire, St. Carl and Master Harold are aspirants for jumping honours now at Ellerslie.

Mr. J. McNicol’s horses Broderick and Woody Glen were sent to Te Aroha via Paeroa by steamer last week.

Mr. Gerald Stead is now residing in Cambridge, and though he has not acquired any land in the Waikato so far is expecting to get his horses north very shortly. ’ Tetratema, who won the Two Thousand Guineas, won five races last year of the value of £10,951. Cinna, winner of the One Thousand Guineas, had £282 to her credit, last season.

M. D. O’Shea, after a very bad attack of pneumonia, which laid him low since the Avondale meeting, started to mend last week and is now on a fair way to recovery.

The Avondale Jockey Club’s committee finished the inquiry into the jockeys’ strike at their recent meeting last week, and it is expected will give their decision shortly. The shorthand notes were being typed.

Nominations for the Great Northern meeting, due on Friday last, were extended to Monday at 5 p.m. in consequence of the disorganisation of the mails caused through the railway hold-up.

It is intended by a number of owners of horses at Ellerslie to try and make hurdlers Of them, . and that would seem a good course to pursue with many useful sorts not quite good enough for flat racing.

The Tetrarch — Scotch Gift grey colt Tetratema, who at two years old won. all five of his engagements, but got beaten in his first appearance this season, won the Two Thousand Guineas last week.

In addition’to some head-and-head and neck-and-'neck contests at the Hawke’s Bay Jockey Club’s autumn meeting last week, there was a deadheat in the Poukawa Hack Handicap between Hymarty 8.6 (H. Gray) and Asterina 8.6 (J. Hockley), with Vitella (7.7) a head away, third.

To avoid clashing with the Royal race meeting at Riccarton, the president of the Racing Conference has sanctioned a change of the dates of the South Canterbury Jockey Club’s autumn meeting from May 13 and 14 to May 12 and 13.

Mr. J. McManaway, the well-known Hunterville sportsman, has been out of luck’s way lately. Some weeks ago Chorister dropped dead while being exercised on the Marton track, and the hurdler Rio was found the other day at the bottom of a cliff with his neck broken.

Parisian Diamond, Who signalised his debut this season at the Waipukurau Jockey Club’s annual meeting on Easter Monday by running third in the Flying Handicap (six furlongs), filled a similar position behipd Silver Link and Amythas in the Manawatu Stakes (six furlongs) at Awapuni, while he. was again third in the Porangahau ‘Handicap (six furlongs) at the Hawke’s Bay meeting on Wednesday last.

A Sydney writer says that most of the two-year-olds over that way have been raced off their legs during the season.

The New Zealand Jockeys’ Association has cost into the thick end of a thousand to get into its present status, and has not yet received official acknowledgment from the N.Z. Racing Conference.

A number of horses that were raced at the Hawke’s Bay Jockey Club’s meeting were booked up to go through to the Egmont meeting starting on Friday. The plans of their owners were upset by the railway dislocation.

A number of Auckland-trained horses have been nominated for the Egmont and Wanganui meetings, and it depends on the facilities for travelling whether some of them will be taken to the meetings.

Messrs. C. Sheath and H. Davies, the northern and southern representatives of the New Zealand Jockeys’ Association, and W. Ryan, the well-known horseman, are to. represent the association at the conference with horse owners’ to be held on June 10 at Wellington. A. C. Watson, of Geraldine, has sold his promising two-year-old colt by Logan Pointer from Milda, to the Gisborne sportsman R. Fisher. The youngster is a brother to Milda Pointer.

Mr. R. B. Lusk has been appointed to act as clerk of scales at the Wanganui J.C. winter meeting on May 20 and 22. Mr. Lusk will also fill his customary place in the judge’s box during the meeting in question. Tetratema, like G'ay Crusader, was beaten in his first three-year-old engagement. Will he, like the lastnamed, having won the Two Thousand Guineas, follow it up with the Derby and St. Leger?

Waitea, - a two-year-old son of Achillies, who won at Hawkesbury, at the A.J.C. meeting on April 7 and at Tattersall’s. meeting, created a favourable impression, and is evidently pretty brilliant. One of his essays was six furlongs with 8.10 in lmin. 12%sec. at Randwick. - . It is -doubtful if Sweet Tipperary will be taken. south for the Royal meeting at Riccarton (sayS a “Times” writer). The black mare was somewhat knocked about after her recent racing, and as she soon shows signs of wear and tear if raced under anything more. than moderate weights her trainer is thinking of relieving her of further engagements in the near future.

Mr. J. Bull’s All Red gelding All Over, who is being schooled over hurdles at Marton, claims engagements in the hurdle events to be decided at the Egmont R.C.’s meeting on the 12th and 13th inst., and is regarded as an almost certain runner at the fixture named.

In all probability the veteran Martian gelding Zeus, who won the hurdle race on the concluding day of the Wellington R.C.’s recent meeting, will be given a chance to distinguish himself over the big country, in which case it will cause no surprise if he should make good at this branch of the game.

According to the “Dominion,” before Arrowsmith was taken north by the Main Trunk express from Wellington to fulfil his engagement at the Royal meeting at Ellerslie, his owner, Mr. H. W. Brown, insured the English-bred horse for £5OOO. Mr. Brown recently refused an offer of £6OOO for Arrow smith from an Australian sportsman. The Totalisator Amendment Act of 1919 is to be amended, and the new provisions provide for three dividends when the starters number nine or more, and two dividends when there are six, seven, or eight runners. The individual who passes money or tickets to anyone in a queue for the purpose of buying tickets or collecting dividends is also to be barred, and no one will be sorry, says “Pilot,” in the “Referee,” when referring to the tote business at Randwick.

The best horse in England up to a mile last season, in the opinion of experts, was Irish Elegance, by Sir Archibald, but his dam, Sweet Cloraine, is not in the Stud Book. Irish Elegance won four good races worth £3755, and C.P., another of Sweet Cloraine’s progeny, won two events worth £594.

Two of the progeny of Catgut, dam of Day Comet (in the Associated Racing Clubs’ ownership in the Waikato), won between them in stakes last year £l5OB. They were Violincello, by Valens, and Planet, by St. Frusquin, the last-named a full-brother to Day Comet.