A FAMOUS RACECOURSE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2808, 8 January 1908, Page 54

A FAMOUS RACECOURSE.

Featherston people are proud of their racecourse at Tauherenikau (says the JJominion). Apart from being by repute the biggest in the Dominion—loo acres—it is, as the Featherston people are prepared to maintain before all the world, the prettiest. If you drive to the course, and are lu^ty enough to have a good guide—says Mr Cundy or" Mr JVilkinson— you can have your horse threaded through winding lanes under a thicket of tall tawar trees, which meet at a lofty height overhead. Mention that you saw something as good somewhere in England, and you will sadly disappoint the local folk, for they fondly cherish the thought that there is, nothing like it in the world. But they ha^e good reason for their pride in this charming spot. It is told in th© local gossip that a year or two before hie death our late respected' Prime Minister, Mr R. J. Steddon, visited the course, with Mrs Seddon and other members of his family, and expressed very great admiration at ite refreshing loveliness. You will be ehown the tree under which Mr Seddon sat, —and where, with a thumb in each -waistcoat sleeve, he gazed upon the little duck-haunted lake, the rich green sward, the sweet succession of open space and 6hady forest, and observed, charactaristieally,~ "A racecourse! What will the young geople care about races here? If ttev are what they were in my days they wiM not bother their heads about the races, out will spend all their time rambling through this beautiful bush." Then from the roof of the grandstand a splendid view of Wairarapa is to be obtained, and this also hae been a theme of much, praise from Mr Seddon. Tt is probably not generally known that Mr" Seddon as Prime Minister of our important little. _part of the British Empire, was weighed just like a jockey in the jockey scales on the Tauherenikau racecourse. v Sis was .probably thg record weight on those scales.. It was 24 etone. It is left to be assumed that Mrs Seddon and others of the family were also weighed— for it was not a race- day —but their weights are not published. _ Another famous circumstance attached to this interesting spot has reference to the two miro 'trees. On an occasion when there was a gathering of great meg about Featherston to talk about the much-pro-posed railway to Martinborough, they were driven to the racecousree. - That is^ a privi- ; l«ge extended to everybody of distinction Iby Feathereton people. And they were set down at the back of the stewards' stand

in a little dell scarcely bigger than the hollow of your hand, where the local words of wisdom about the railway were rainea softly upon th^m. Finally the Hon. Jam-^ Carrol, Native Minister, got a chance to put in a word, and his speech wa6 of tho two niLro trees which encompass the dell. " The pig-eons that fall from the miro tree," he said, " only the chieftains eat. They cook them whole. These are very fine specimens of the beautiful miro, which are rare in this part of the country." The two trees are said to be the only miros in "Wairarapa.