FEW GOOD ONES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 645, 23 April 1929, Page 12

FEW GOOD ONES

CHANCE FOR NEW STAR ABSENCE OF CRACKS Strephon is definitely lost to Australian racing. Gothic has retired. Statesman will not race for another year, and there seems some doubt in certain quarters whether Winalot will race again. What horses, then, will constitute the long distance w.f.a. fields in the spring? It will be a tragedy for Australian racing if the field is left open to the horses who opposed Strephon at Randwick this autumn. for it may mean the death knell of all interest in such races. Those horses who followed Strephon homo are not even good lian dicappers. Stayers Wanted The whole position depends on the development of one of the present two-year-olds into a really good stayer next season. There is a distinct possibility of such a happening, but at this stage it must necessarily be uncertain, and one can ony discuss the possible stayers among the horses known now. It is hoped that the reported announcement by Mr. E. K. White that Winalot may not race again will not hold much truth. Winalot is not a wonderful weight - for-age performer, but he would have little difficulty among the Sydney stayers at present, and his owner is certain to run him in the spring if there is any chance of his winning. Good judges aver that his injury, which kept him out of the Cumberland and A. J. C. Plates, is only slight. What of Limerick? Presumably Limerick will again visit Sydney in the spring, but, despite his Autumn Stakes success, he was far from the Limerick of old. and the extra few months may not improve him. He has lost much of his dash now, and may have slipped still further by the spring. Mollison will never make a stayer, and it is doubtful whether his connections will make another attempt to win a long-distance race with him. Is the stage to be left . then, to such horses as Black Duchess, Paddi Eve. Leadlight, and others of the same type, or will a three-year-old arise to relieve the situation and place w.f.a. racing on a higher plane? As Mr. Asquith said “wait mil