Dark Lantern Is Not a Dark Horse

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 401, 9 July 1928, Page 10

Dark Lantern Is Not a Dark Horse

A NEAR-CHAMPION A horse that continues to be very much in the limelight of the Press is the New Zealander Mr. Boyd Davis’s Dark Lantern 11., says a London correspondent under date June 2, to the “Post.” Unknown at Lincoln, he is now far-famed as the French Guineas winner, and Mr. Davis has challenged the French crack three-year-old, Kantar (owned by Lord Derby) to a match at any distance from seven furlongs to a mile and a half. Dark Lantern 11. has been entered for the Hunt Cup, one of the chief events at the Ascot meeting. There are 51 other entries for this race. Never Off the Bit Mr. Edgard Wallace writes in “The Star”: “That remarkable horse, Dark Lantern 11., will afford a rare puzzle to the handicapper, though his performances in England offer a certain amount of guidance. He is a 121 b better horse than Josephus, and Josephus, on his Greenwood -running, is about a stone behind Jurisdiction; therefore you could place him somewhere about the Jurisdiction mark. “If it is going to be difficult for the handicapper to access .him, his owner may find an equal difficulty in placing him. He has one or two unimportant book engagements, which one supposes he will not fill. Ido not know whether he is in the Grand Prix; only the entries received in London for that race are shown in the calendar. One presumes that his French engagements were made prior to his sale at Deauville. I am told that it is very unlikely that any other jockey than Balding will ever ride him, and Balding is no light weight. I don’t think however the question of finding a lightweight jockey for Dark Lantern 11. will ever arise. He is not likely to be found in the seven stone division in the qourse of the next few years.

“A man who was in Paris and saw him win the Guineas says that he was never off the bit, and that he beat a three-year-old in Motrico that they thought was unbeatable. He won exactly as he had won his other races in the country, practically from start to finish. In all the circumstances his defeat in the Easter Plate at Kempton, when he started at a short price, was inexplicable. Will he go for the Royal Hunt Cup, or shall we see him in the field for the Cambridgeshire? He is essentially the type that might win a Jubilee as a four-year-old. One of the Best of his Age “Augur.” of the “Sporting Life,” devotes some attention to the ex-New Zealander’s horse: “Probably few people who saw Cohort easily break up a field of a maiden plate personnel at Kempton on Easter Monday, imagined that the unplaced division included even an entrant from the French Two Thousand, alone the eventual winner, but Dark Lantern 11. was very easily beaten in the Thames valley, and he did just as readily carry off the French classic at Longchamp. In the one race he appeared to be merely one of those horses whose 101 b penalty was too much. In the other he smote the French opposition so lustily that it is reported that his saliva was put to the ‘dope’ test and his teeth examined, lest he might have entered, in pure ignorance, at the wrong age. Confident Challenge The result in each case being declared satisfactory by the official inspector there were subsequently offers running well into five figures for the colt, whose owner-trainer instead declared his willingness to match Dark Lantern 11. against any of his horse’s age in France, from seven furlongs to a mile and a half, even weights, for £4,000 a-side. This statement is not only made on the authority of that wellinformed Anglo-French writer on Turf affairs, “Faraway,” but is supplemented with that excellent judge’s opinion—and he has won the French classic in question with one of his own breeding—that even if Kantar, Palais Royal 11., and Ivanoe had been in the Two Thousand field the result would have been the same, and that it is well for the respective owners of these that Dark Lantern 11. is not in the French Derby or the Grand Prix. Yet when I mentioned this to a jockey who has ridden a good deal across the water during the last two years, and who knows all the four horses mentioned, he scouted the notion that Dark Lantern 11. was as good as that.

“More unlikely things may happen than that Glenhazel, if he continues well, will win te Cesarewitch, and Dark Lantern 11. the Cambridgeshire. Possibly the last-named was unable to do himself justice at Kempton. Previously he had won at his leisure at Lincoln. Susequently he had needed a lot of pulling up when he beat Josephus so easily at Landown. Evidently enough, like Glenhazel, he thrives on his racing. Both being such very interesting three-year-olds, it is to be hoped that neither may suffer from excess of enthusiasm in the stable. It is so easy to over-tax the willing horse.”