SOARING PRIZES

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 49, 13 March 1937, Page 8

SOARING PRIZES

"Early Bird.")

A Seven Hundred Pound Steeplechase WINTER RACING SOON

(Special from

AUGKxiAND, Friday. It looka as if the steeplechase season, due to open. at Hastings on May 12 (Coronation Day) is going.to go oif with a ' 1 bang, ' > owing to the increase in stake money to be expected with ( rising totalisator revenue. A week after the Egmont lixture at Hawera there will be two days at Te Bapa and the Waikato Racing Club has already announced some astonishhig prizo money. Coming as it aoes a rortnight before the Greau Northern meeting this fixture should be most successfnl and the prizes will be well worth winning and so productive of better xaeing. The Coronation Steeplechase at Te Rapa on May 22 will be worth £700 and will be run over three miles, while ,on. the seccnd day . the cross-country event will be half a mile shorter for a £500 stake. The twio-mile Coronation Hurdles will be worth £500. The maia flat handicap race will also carry a £500 stake. In all, the stakes have been increased £1800 over those offered in May last. Will Bring Recruits. # . With such liberal prize money on offer, owners will xealise that at last the increased? cost of racing jumpers is going to be made worth while by bigger stakos and so be induced to prepare horses- for jumping events. With . still a couple of,months to go before the Waikato fixture . opens, there will be plfenty of opportunities to school and race horses over the sticks prior to taking on the big money. . "All this should create increased interest in the jumpers and result in a boom sea-son for them. Recruits to the game are sadly needed, if recent entries for events up north are any criterion. For instance, for the steeplechase races at Paeroa only 10 entries were received. For the Ellerslie crosscountry events. at Easter the position is worse, eonsidering the better, prize money, for there are only 11 in the hack event and nine in the open steeplechase.