STAGE TO SADDLE

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 44, 14 May 1927, Page 21 (Supplement)

STAGE TO SADDLE

TOM BURKE’S AMBITION WIN GRAND NATIONAL Tom Burke, the noted British tenor, Is ambitious to become a jockey—in fa:t, he is actually training for his new role.

His secret was revealed when he landed at Southampton from America, where be has been singing for the last si:; years with the Chicago Opera Company. He sailed across the Atlantic on two hcurs’ notice to sing at a festival concert at Manchester, only 12 miles from where he was born, and where he was ‘■discovered" as a singer, from the mines.

Expressing his great delight at being home again, he eagerly inquired for the result of the Grand National.

"It is and always has been my peatest ambition to ride as a jockeyin the Grand National," he said, “and it I'm lucky I’ll ride a winner next year.

“I've been training to get down to the proper weight, and have reduced 581 b during the past 12 months, so that now I weigh less than 12 stone.” When asked for his routine for reduction he said that exercise, diet, and above all, total abstinence, had brought about the desired resailt. Next to riding in the Grand National, he said, he would like to drive Major Seagrave’s 1,000-h.p. motor-car.