Mr J. Henry on the Totalisator.

Manawatu Herald, 24 July 1894, Page 2

Mr J. Henry on the Totalisator.

Mr Henry, the well- known handicapper has been interviewed by a representative of the Chronicle, during which he remarked :—

The totalisator had had a beneficial effect on racing. . It has enabled clubs to erect buildings for the comfort of the ~ public, , owners, trainers, jockeys, and the horses ; it has enabled them to make their racecourses almost as level as bowling greens, and lastly there is the large, increase in the stakes which are more than treble the amount given prior to the machine being legalised. .

The abolition of the ,toj;aJisaJ;Qj:. would now do iway with fche majority of meeting's." "The owners would be the sufferer?, the nouiina* tion and acceptance fees would be doubled, and the revenue which' the clubs at present derive and which enable them to give large prizes would go to fill the pockets of the bookmakers.

To bis mind" a much better Way of reducing the race meetings would be to have a stake limit, similar to whafat present exists, but to make it more stringent and not allow any club to hold more than seven days racing in one year, and grant no licenses to proprietary clubs, and compel the trotting clubs to give the saute amount in stakes as racing clubs. Betting has increased and id baS the population, but I Would like to point out to those that are oppose^ to it, that the public who invest on the totalisator do it at their own free will ; they are not asked by the totalisator proprietors, or the servants of the club to go and baok horses. It is hardly necessary for me to say that it is quite the reverse with the bookmakers, a very strong argument in favor of the machine. Up to the present I do not think the totalisator has affected either one way or the other the breeding of horses, but I do honestly believe that if the majoiity of racing clubs in the colony will insist on cutting down the distances of raoes in order to get; large fields, so as to increase the profits of the club, it will greatly affect the breeding of horses generally. Almost any horse can gallop half a mile tfith little or no training, but it requires a good horse with both stamina and condition to win a two mile race. It only requires the number of races to be increased to a distance of two miles, and we would then have plenty of horses that could stay the distance. The above alteration, I feel, will never come into force until a New Zealand Jockey Club i 3 formed. The tribunal could then frame rules to compel every club to have at least one race on the flat of two miles in each day's racing, and not more than one event of less than a mile (two year-old races excepted) ; and weight for age races, which are becoming a thing of the past with all the clubs excepting Canterbury, Auckland and Dunedin — and the two latter have but very few races of that class— should be more encouraged.