SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

Evening Star, Issue 3666, 21 November 1874, Page 2

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

A meeting of some of the owners of horses engaged at the ensuing spring race meeting was held at the Shamrock Hotel today. Some dissatisfaction was expressed at the weight issued for the St. Andrew’s and Spring Handicaps, and a resolution was proposed that those gentlemen present should in future eater no horses for handicap races at any Dunedin meeting, so long as the present haudicappera retained office. It having been learned that the Jockey Club Committee meet on Monday to consider this identical question, the meeting then adjourned until the result is known.

“Hermit,” in his last communication to the ‘ Globe,’ refers thus to the late metro* politan meeting “ Probably the best races of the meeting were on the third day, and the struggles for the Christchurch Plate and Metropolitan Handicap were well worth seeing. There is no doubt that the performance of Ngaro in the Plate added enormously to her value, when the annual farce of patting up the racehorses for sale was carried out; but I must say that I consider she was an excessively dear animal at L 525, and that the purchaser has paid for every hair in her tail, as the saying is. Ngaro’s own sister, Lady Ravensworth, was disposed of last year at a far more reasonable figure; but even then she has turned out at present a decidedly dear purchase. I doubt if Ngaro is a thoroughly game honest mare, and she is an animal that for some time to come will require very careful riding on coming near the crowd at the rails, as sha evinces a most decided inclination to shift the moment she comes near them. With regard to the other performances at the mesting, Templeton showed us what a brilliant animal he is at bis own distance, by his performances in the Grand Stand and Metropolitan Handicaps, and be must be very dangerous at distances varying from a mile to a mile and a-half, as long as he continues in his present fine form, ft would seem from the accounts I have received from eye witnesses of the race for the Melbourne Cup, that Lurline was never prominent in the straggle. The latest private news I bad from Melbourne were not satisfactory to backers of the mare, as she had been much affected by the hot weather, and had, from what I can learn, been a little overdone in her work. Papapa was never fit, and all the bunkum that was indulged in of backing him for a place against Goldsborough at even money, was put down accurately enou.h by the parties who backed Him not to start for the great race. I fancy we have heard the last of Papapa as a racehorse on any course, and that we shall never be treated to a sight of him stripped to uphold his [shaky reputation. Calumny seems to have run fairly for a mile or more in the Botham Handicap, but as I have before written, I think her best days as a racehorse are over.