ENGLISH SPORTING.

Patea Mail, Volume II, Issue 151, 20 September 1876, Page 2

ENGLISH SPORTING.

The correspondent of the “ Press” has the following sporting gossip : At the annual sale of yearlings last month at the Cobham Stud Farm, a yearling colt fetched, the enormous and unprecedented price of 4100 guineas. This nearly doubles the largest sum ever yet given for a yearling. ' The purchaser was the Puke of Westminster’s trainer, and I cannot but think that his judgment was hardly equal to Ids pluck. The reason of the great increase in the price paid for racing yearlings lies in the great rise during the last few years in the value of the prizes offered. In the early days of the turf the committee of management at groat race meetings were thought to be doing the thing very liberally if they gave away a prize of £2OO, the rest of the ccvnts being mere sweenstakes; but now at the great meetings £SOO, and even £IOOO arc often added to a single race. At the Ascot meeting the other day £2OOO were given away in prizes, and at Goodwood this month there will probably be nearly as much to bo competed for. It is not an impossibility now for a successful racer to win his weight in gold during his sporting career. Taking this into consideration, the £4IOO guineas paid the other day by the Duke of Westminister’s trainer is not as preposterous as,it would seem at first sight. It the colt turns out well, as there is grest reason to believe he will, he may win his owner his purchase money back over and over again. A gentleman tolerably , well known in sporting circles has just made one of the luckiest hits on record. Ho received from a bookmaker odds of 800 to 1 in sovereigns against his naming the three winners of the three, races —-the Two Thousand, tho City and Suburban,

and the Derby, The gentleman named Petrarch, Thunderer, and the. Mineral Colt, and thus pulled off what is termed in-sporting language, the “ triple event.” The £BOO was paid punctually on settling day. I can vouch for the truth of this, as the lucky individual in question is a near relation of the writer’s. The bet, with a groat many variations and exaggei'ationst has been going the round of the papers.