DRAUGHT-HORSE DERBIES

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 154, 25 March 1939, Page 15

DRAUGHT-HORSE DERBIES

Mayors, Totvn Clerks, Jockeys And M.P.’s As Riders

The first public gatheriug iu connexion with the effort to raise the Hutt Valley quota toward the ereel ion of the provincial centennial memorial on Petone beach will be a comedy picnic on Hutt Park today. The highlight of the attractions will be a draught horse race with the

mayors and town clerks of Lower Hutt, Petone, Eastbourne and Upper Hutt, and the M.P. for Wellington Suburbs, Mr. Combs, and possibly other M.P.’s as jockeys. This will be a half-mile event, •bareback, and the horses will not be allowed to go more than walking pace. A silver cup has been given by Mr. O. Silbery for this event. Another event is a draught horse derby, also a bareback event, with leading Trentham jockeys and apprentices as riders. They will not be allowed any artificial aids to stimulating their mounts to faster efforts, and in addition will be required to dismount and finish the race on foot.

There will be two trotting races and one pacers’ event under the auspecies of the Wellington Trotting Club, a hack race for women riders, whippet races, a freak bicycle race for tandems, pennyfarthings, and the like, a female impersonators’ race, and other attractions. A prize of a child’s sewing machine has been given for the principal children’s race.