MUCH ADO

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 132, 25 August 1927, Page 6

MUCH ADO

EXCHANGE OF COURTESIES STORY OF AN OPENED TELEGRAM When Sir Henry Bird was fined £SO and reprimanded by the stewards at Hurst Park for weighing out a jockey for a horse that had not arrived at the course, he said, in the course of an interview, “I have been tricked. There isn’t the slightest doubt about it.” This evidently nettled Mr. “Bob” Sievier, who until recently managed Henry Bird’s horses, and he wrote to the Press saying that, in common fairness Sir Henry should name the trickster, and thereby free from suspicion some innocent individual. In reply, Sir Henry Bird said that though the telegram from Whalley telling him the horse was not being sent to Hurst Park reached the course a little after 1 p.m., it was not on the board when he passed it several times between 1.30 and 2.30. The telegram had been opened when he got it at 2.45 p.m. “LOCATE THE TRICKSTER” Sir Henrj concluded as follows: “No one bearing the name of Bird has been good enough to come forward to say that he opened the telegram in error. Consequently if Mr. 'Sievier is as interested in' the mystery as his letter would seem to indicate, I would suggest that he spend a little of his valuable time disguised as a detective and try to locate the gentleman or trickster who opened the telegram and conveniently held on to it until it was too late to be of service to me.” Sievier replied to the effect that he told Lord Lonsdale that though odds were being laid on Galloper King, the horse was not there, and pointed out Sir Henry Bird, who was leisurely ambling in the paddock. Sievier that he saw a telegram on the board which had obviously been opened, and, though entirely estranged from Bird, told him of it, and took it to him. Sievicr says that after the hearing a man told Sir Henry he had seen someone open the message, and suggests the latter should have gone about discovering the trickery at that time, instead of making a facetious, if not impertin- < • t, retort to his (Sievier’s) letter to the Press.