SPORTING

Otaki Mail, Volume 26, 18 August 1919, Page 3

SPORTING

This is the time of year more than any other—darkish days and long courses—for the colours reform that two or three sporting writers, including myself, have argued for (writes "Old Identity" in Dftncdin Star).

The system that I want is for each club to provide the colours worn on riders; that No. 1 on the card shall always be red; that No. 2 white. No. 3 blue, and so on; and that the colours shall match the colours giyen in n book to be kept at the office so as to avoid such dodging as would give us a green that would look like white at a distance, or a blue that would look like black. I have never heard one argument against such a scheme. The objections are mostly sneers. The rest are nonsense. As, for example, the objection that owners would weep if they had to race in colours other than those that they are used to. I do find them weeping very heavily when standing down an old servant because he is a pound or two overweight; and T have. known them recover from the awful shock of having to borrow a set of colours when their man had forgotten to bring their own. Another example of the nonsense objections is that the primary colours are not numerous enough to supply a big field. This is pure silliness. When the red, white, blue, green, yellow, and black are exhausted—and I would not have any Others —we could have red and white stripes, red and blue stripes, and so on, and after the stripes were done we could have red with white band, Ted with blue band, and so on, always sticking to prescribed order which a child could draw up. The one rejoinder to all the objections, sentimental and foolish, is that our masters, the public, cannot by the present system, or want of system, pick out the horses whilst a race is on, and that it would pay the clubs to enable this to be done.