PENINSULA RACING.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 581, 7 February 1882, Page 2

PENINSULA RACING.

The proposed steeplechase at German Bay is a step in the light direction, but it is we hope only a step towards the establishment of a better state of things on the Peninsula, as far as racing is concerned. Like the Agricultural Show, a really good race meeting on the Peninsula is a thing ot the pnst, but we hope to see both renewed. It appears to ufc that the best way to do this is to establish a Racing Club of which every resident of standing in the County shall be asked to be a member. The annual subscription need not be large. In most County Clubs it is fixed nt two guineas, but if it were only one guinea and there were from a hundred and fifty, to two hundred subscribers a very respectable nucleus for a meeting would be in hand, and such prizes could be offered as would induce realy good horses to try their lncic among us. One of the greatest difficulties in the way of Peninsula racing undoubtedly lies iv the fact that there is so little flat land, and if a really successful annual gathering is to be established, all petty jealousies regarding the site must be sunk. Iwo things we require, a good course and o isy access to it, and if these are secured all other difficulties can be overcome. It redly seems wonderful to us that no race meeting of any importance takes place in our County for we are certainly more dependant on saddle horses, owing to the peculiar nature of the County which precludes the use of vehicles, than any other place of the same importance in New Zealand. Nearly everyone rides and all are anxious to keep a really good horse, for once procured, his feed costs no more than a bad one does. Besides anyone living in the bays may have to go for the doctor or proceed on some other urgent business at any time of the day or night In proceeding on such an errand a human life may perhaps depend on the speed and endurance of the horse, for there are no telegraphs and no trains except on the main road. Being therefore so dependent on horses, we should do our best to get some of the right sort, and also to educate ourselves enough in the matter to know what a good horse really is, and nothiug tends more to this knowledge than a really good race meeting, properly conducted and well attended, for there can be seen, not only models in the shape of well trained blood horses, but also all the best hackneys, for if a man has a real good bit of stuff, he likes to show it on a race course.

It must not be thought for a moment that in advocating the bxlding of a reallj good meeting we are proposing to do away with the various little events that annually come oft" in certain localities'. It would he hard indeed it each ueighborhcot.l did not have its d;vy of relaxation, aud there are no deadlier enemies of the " Gradgrind " system than ourselves. In many places on the plains it is the custom to have annual athletic sports, and racing for district horses combined, and these double meetings are by far the most successful small gatherings we have ever seen.

But the sort of meeting we propose is !i different affair altogether, not a local gathering for the purpose of passing a few happy hours, but a meeting that will lake its place amongst the principal in Canterbury, a meeting of Mich a character that first class horses from the plains will run against the beßt of our own, and we certainly hope that the numerous influential gentlemen whose names appear in connection with the German Bay Steeplechase, will take the opportunity of forming a Peninsula Racing Club, and that next spring may witness the first uf a long series of really good Peninsula Races,