ENTRIES FOR RACES.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 147, 23 November 1874, Page 2

ENTRIES FOR RACES.

To the Editor of the Globe. Sir, —Allow me to call attention through your columns to the present difficulties which lie in the way of a racehorse owner entering for events which are advertised to take place in various parts of New Zealand. Let me say, for the sake of explanation, that I am an owner of various racehorses, more or less indifferent, and am at present residing in the Canterbury Province. I am anxious of course to have an opportunity of running these animals at other meetings than those which tike place in this province, and accordingly I make my preparations to enter them in various races which are to come off in Wellington, Auckland, &c. Of course I do not wish to send in my entries until the last instant, as an accident may happen to a horse at any moment, and I therefore do not send any entry sooner than I am obliged. But now comes the difficulty ; I proceed on the morning of the general entry day, say for the Auckland races, to the telegraph office, and am informed by the clerk at that office that " the wire is down at the Cheviot" or some other place, and it is quite uncertain that it will be repaired in time to get the entries through before closing time. This is one instance; now for another. I make my mind up on another occasion to send my entries by steamer, and run the risk of anything going wrong with any one of the animals I intend to enter between the time at which the steamer leaves and Lyttelton and the time at which I am compelled to make my entries. The steamer leaves at her advertised time, but is detained, let us lay, at

Timaru, or Oamaru, and my entries arrive an hour too late at Duncdin. All my time, trouble and expense are therefore lost, and I have the satisfaction of seeing prizes, that I had already appropriated in imagination, going into the pockets of other owners. Now Sir, all this might very easily be rectified, by an arrangement which could be made with the greatest facility between the various racing clubs in New Zealand. Surely it would not be too much trouble, to the various secretaries of the different jockey clubs, to receive, entrances on the days appointed for the different meetings, and the expense of a telegraph message containing the names of the animals entered would be cheerfully borne by the respective owners. By this means I should be enabled to make my entries this evening for the Wellington races to Mr Digby, and owners in Auckland could enter these to the secretary Auckland J. C. One thing, I am certain of, ard this is that if the C.O.C. were to initiate the plan it would soon be followed by the clubs in the other provinces. Yours, &c, B. B. Christchurch, November 23rd, 1874.