FIRST AS HURDLER

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 133, 7 June 1937, Page 13

FIRST AS HURDLER

ETHIOP FINISHES SOLIDLY

• Ethiop continued the. improving form he • has ' lately been showing in winning the Purua Hack Hurdles by a neck from the favourite, Hunting Queen. He raft round to join Hunting Queen at the last fence, and after landing just in front he always held the upper hand over the final furlong. Ethiop was enjoying his first success over fences, but, though he made a beginning in the role last winter he has not yet had much racing as a hurdler. Last season he won the Douro Cup and then the Woodville Handicap, and Saturday.was his first win since that Woodville success. At Wanganui last winter. he was second in the May Hurdles, and was second recently .to Red Manfred at Foxton. A five-year-old half-brdther by Nigger Minstrel to Acora, a useful sprinter some years back, he tames the colours of his breeder, Mr. A. T. Gatrell, of Marton. His jumping at his last two outings has been clean and fast, and he has better stamina than many in the game at present. Hunting; Queen, jumping _fast early, was the pacemaker, most of the way, but she required hard riding over the last half-mile. She had yielded to the winner before the last.fence, but was trvina to-poke up again on the innei near the post. Red Manfred, after heading Hunting Queen along the back. Stopped-badly after -the second last fence, and he would not have been even a: poor third if Petrarch had not crashed at the final fence. Petrarch was going well at the time just behind the leading pair, and he probably would have been in the fight for honours. He was very sore.with an injured shoulder after h«. fall. Ken-, tucky Song was early out of the serious count.