MOUNT IDA JOCKEY CLUB SPRING MEETING.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 125, 21 July 1871, Page 3

MOUNT IDA JOCKEY CLUB SPRING MEETING.

(To the Editor of the Motjnx Ida Chbonicle.) Hyde, July 17, 1871. Sir, —Having learned that the Mount Ida Jockey Club intend holding this yeur a Spring Meeting, will you allow me, through the medium of your columns, to offer a suggestion or two ? Trusting that it will be received in the same spirit in which it is written. Let me first state that I am not the owner of a racehorse, nor, beyond the wish to see a good day's sport, am I interested either directly or indirectly. There can be no second opinion as to the fact that the last Autumn Meeting at Naseby was not a success. I would therefore suggest—lst, That the Spring Meet should be confined to horses the property of residents in the district, that have never won over a certain amount of money—the district to be the Electoral district for the Assembly. 2nd, That the Club should procure the services of a paid handicapper, or get a few competent and disinterested gentlemen to act as handicappers. After the declaration of the weights for the Autumn Meeting Mr. Douglas' handicapping was very severely criticised—the results showed the critics were right. Mr. Douglas' attempt —if ever the attempt was made—to put the horses together was a most miserable failure. There was not a man on the Hogburn course, who knew anything of the horses, that did not feel quite satisfied that Atlas could have carried lumps of weight more than he did, and have won as he liked. What was placed to the Chief's credit was also a gift to him. "When public money is to be run for the public expect to get a little value for it in the shape of sport; but during an experience of considerably over a quarter of a century I never witnessed such a perfect farce as the last Mount Ida Meet. Another such, and it is an easy matter to prophesy a natural death to the Mount Ida Jockey Club. Contrast it with the Dunedin Meeting on the Forbury course, where every race was well and honestly contested, and where the Consolation Stakes was such a race as a man may see but once in a lifetime. Confine the Spring Meeting to district horses, with a paid or disinterested handicapper, and an inducement is at once held out to men of small means in the district to bring out better horses than at present. Financially and otherwise it will be a success for the Club, and the public will, at all events, get a little value for their money. Apologising for taking up so much of your space, and trusting that some abler pen than mine will take the matter up, I am, &c. Nine Stone Six.