A Raging Gale and Vicious Rain

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 868, 11 January 1930, Page 6

A Raging Gale and Vicious Rain

SNOW FOR A CHANGE I j SEASONABLE WEATHER While in the Dominion this midsummer sportsmen are enjoying (?) the seasonable and unseasonable weather, they at least have not had the experience their English sporting fraternity had to put up with last month. One could be really sorry for the Hurst Park (London) people last Saturday (wrote a London sporting critic on December 3). They had arranged a topping card, which included an event gradiloquently styled the Great Two-year-old Stakes. It was a sweepstakes of £SO to enter, and another £SO to ‘run. The executive added £I,OOO, which made it a wonderful stake for this fag end of the season. Then the diabolical weather stepped in. Theie was a raging gale, and vicious rain. In perfect combination, they kept the people at home. For the few who did come, garbed as if for a lifeboat adventure, there was an addition in the form of driven snow, with flakes as big as tennis balls. If the horrible visitation had come just a bit earlier the signal to abandon .would have been given sooner by the stewards, and the executive would have been spared having to find that £I,OOO for the big race. On the other hand, Lord Woolavington’s Press Gang (by Hurry on from the Derby and Oaks winner Fifinella) would never have had the opportunity of winning it. This the chestnut colt did by a short head.