LITTLE CHANCE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 612, 14 March 1929, Page 10

LITTLE CHANCE

IN GOOD COMPANY THE HAWK AS A STAYER A Sydney writer has no delusions about the chances of The Hawk when it comes to racing over a distance among good handicap horses. He says: The Hawk is apparently to make another trip to Sydney, but this time he will not come as the brilliant miler of former years, but as a stayer of very ordinary calibre who is yet considered good enough to enter for the long w.f.a. events at Randwick. His only engagements are the Cumberland Stakes, 15 miles, the A.J.C. Plate, 2\ miles, and the Fnal Handicap, miles. His connections must be hopeful of his having developed far above anj'thing he ever showed as a stayer, but it is doubtful, despite such apparent confidence, that Sydney racegoers will take the old gelding seriously if he is brought over this autumn. At a recent effort in New Zealand, The Hawk ran second in the Wellington Cup over 15 miles to a good horse, Vertigern, but he carried only a very light weight, 7.8, and that form cannot be taken as a criterion that lie has improved as a stayer. tie is a very old horse now, and the fact that he has sunk so low in the weights in New Zealand is sufficient indication that he is far from the horse he was a few years ago. Never a Stayer Even at his top The Hawk was not a true stayer. At a pinch he could get a mile and a-quarter, but when favourite for the Caulfield Cup in 1924, he failed over the last two furlongs. In face of those earlier results, it is hard to conceive The Hawk now issuing forth as a weight-for-age stayer, and it is difficult to imagine what his connections have in mind.

Possibly they are hopeful that the field will dwindle down to very mediocre standards, and therefore make minor place money easy, but with horses like Limerick. Vertigern, Jocelyn, Winalot and Strephon among the entrants, there must be many important scratchings before The Hawk will have the remotest chance of a place, t-ine. Asleep.