TWO DERBY HORSES

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 102, 21 July 1927, Page 6

TWO DERBY HORSES

AGRION AND PHILLIPIC TRAINER MASON TALKS “How are you, Dick?'* “Not too good!” And Mr. R. J. Mason, leading N.Z. trainer and popular figure in Sydney almost every spring, ended still another .journey last week, says a Sydney writer. How many times he has made the Sydney trip. Mr. Mason has quite forgotten. but he has not forgotten the old faces. Mason has not fully recovered from a serious accident to one of his legs, and for five weeks moved about on crutches. He reckons that but for the misfortune, he and his horses would have been in Sydney before the May meeting. But for all his inability to get about with his accustomed agility. Mason left the boat in particularly good spirits—and particularly glad to leave it. A ROUGH TRIP The Marama had one of the worst trips experienced for many years, and was about ten hours late. Heavy seas broke through the port holes on many occasions throughout the trip, but the horses were unaffected, and were in almost as good condition as when they left New Zealand. Mason will make the attempt on the A.J.C. Derby with Agrion and Phillipic, and the horses are being stabled at Chisholm’s, the usual home of his team. When he last came to Australia, this time last year. Mason brought Agrion and Eulalie, but though the last named won good races in New Zealand, after she captured the Gimcrack in Sydney, Mason aid not consider it worth while bringing her this time.

He did not look on her as a Derby possibility, and the fact that she would have a penalty for the minor three-year-old events caused him to decide on leaving her in New Zealand. There, penalties are from season to season only, and she will start off the 192728 season as though she had never won a big event.