THE CANTERBURY CUP NOMINATIONS.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2304, 22 August 1881, Page 3

THE CANTERBURY CUP NOMINATIONS.

Br Sins ad. It is not very easy, with a Derby article shortly to write, to make any lengthened description of the Oup candidates, rs, with the exception of Grip, The Governor, Lo Loup, and Mata, the contestants are all three-year-olds, and most of them engaged in the Derby. If either Mata or Le Loup come cherry ripe to the post, my selection would be the fittest on the day, with a preference for Mata, as being by far the gamest of the two. Neither Grip nor the Governor would have any show with the two top-weight* at weight-for-age. There is every chance of one, i£ not both of the aged hones coming to the post, and the only show of defeating either is amongst the three-year-olds, but it must be recollected that since the revised scale of weights has been adopted the aged horse* meet the youngster* on much more favorable terms than was formerly the case, and I consider that, under the present weights, a three-year-old colt must be a real clinker to win such a race against first-class aged bones such as the two engaged in the present year’s Oup. There may be more than one clinker amongst the three-year-olds. Indeed, I think there are several uncommonly good ones, but the gods, who are supposed to love those who die young, seem to be of a very similar opinion in respect to young race horses who often, after being highly tried, go amiss on the eve of an important race, and are never seen on a racecourse in their lives. You can predicate that an old horse, whose soundness has been thoroughly established, has a far better show of standing a severe preparation than a three-year-old, whose trainer most likely knows but little of bis abilities until wound up for his trial, and not such a great deal more after it. From experience the trainer knows how to work the old ones, while its young ones to whom the distich

’Tis the voice of the trainer, I heard him complain— We don’t know his form, we must try him again ”

applies. The three-olds I most prefer, as I have before remarked, are the Yattendon — Peeress colt, Mataku, and Louis d’Or, not to add Amulet, Fleur.de-Lis, the Dauphin, and Hinemoa, any one of whom may prove stayers, and most of whom have showed themselves possessed of no ordinary amount of pace.