YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD HORSE DOWN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 426, 7 August 1928, Page 10

YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD HORSE DOWN

SPEARFELT FRISKY AS EVER

The Melbourne Cup winner, Spearfelt, so far has done sufficiently well in his spring preparation this year to encourage the belief that he might come successfully through the ordeal of fast work. Report from Melbourne states that he was never in better health, and his legs are sound. His owner, Mr. Doug. Grant, is in Sydney, and the reports received from Trainer Vin O’Neil are highly favourable. As a matter of fact, while in Melbourne for portion of the Grand National meeting recently, Mr. Grant saw the old champion, and witnessed his work one morning when, after steady pacing, he sprinted home a furlong at racing speed, and was eager to go on. Mr. Grant reports that he was never better in his life, and has developed into a fine horse. A Hopeful Outlook The real test of his prospects of seeing the post for spring engagements, of course, will come when he does fast work morning after morning, but the present outlook is hopeful. Spearfelt has had only a couple of runs since he broke down 18 months ago in the Chipping Norton Stakes at Warwick Farm. That, by the way, was a fatal race for champions and Melbourne Cup winners, for it proved the beginning of th© end for Windbag, and he is now at the stud. Capable of beating the best of our weight-for-age horses over a distance when he was in form, Spearfelt would be a paying proposition in w.f.a. events if he struck form this spring. And he would have excellent prospects in the Melbourne Cup, too, if he stood, for his 9.12 would not crush him out of the race in the present dearth of high-class stayers. Spearfelt won the race two years ago with 9.3.