“TURF MIRACLES”

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1030, 22 July 1930, Page 12

“TURF MIRACLES”

RACE WON BY HORSE THAT DID NOT START ECHO OF THE PANTHER A little while ago Mr. Campbell Russell wrote one of those books—- “ Triumphs and Tragedies of the Turf*’ it was called —which everybody enjoys who loves a racehorse. Whether he expected it or not, this owner-trainer - rider-author found he had produced a i “best-seller’’ and now, comments a Condon reviewer, he has written some more of his lively reminiscences and published them under ' the title of “Miracles of the Turf.” For a racing raconteur Mr. Russell has the engaging quality of selecting a capital incident and then giving it off in easy conversational fashion, devoid of any self-consciousness of penmanship. Ran Away from School Consequently sporting readers feel that they have run across the very man who could entertain them for hours by chatting about widely known things and people they have been interested in for years, things this man has done and people he has known. ~- Thus the cross-country man will find in the very first chapter gossip about .Too Widger and The Wild Man From Borneo’s National. Joe was reported “missing from school” at the. tender age of 12 years, the reason being that he had crossed from Ireland and ha.d ridden a winner at the Bangor-on-Dee steeplechases! This was liis first winner, and his last was when lie beat ' three of . his nephews and declared he would have to stop then, to give his nephews a chance! 30s—Into £1,260 Then there is the tale of the champion “flapping” jockey Webb, who borrowed 30s one morning at “Ally Pallv” and turned it into £1,260 before the end of the afternoon. There is much about Joe Widger, who loved to back his horses at a short instead of along price, as in the latter case he always felt sure something better was on hand. The tale of his parrot is good, too. Also he was connected with a mare which its woman owner dearly wished to keep after it had won a race. The friendly auctioneer at Leopardstown, who had lunched well, contrived this, on mounting his rostrum, in the following manner. Said he: “This mare is the property of Miss Welsby and anyone daring to bid for her will be shot. Cloing—Going—Gone!” A Personal Affair We get the story of the Panther, that horse upon whom the cheap daily Press fastened and made every washerwoman in the country think the Derby was her own personal affair. Previously the race had excited one in 20 of the population, but “stunt” methods that year roped in one in five and snade the Derby the hearth and home affair it has since remained. Mr. Campbell Russell's view—which was not that of the late journalist, Mr. Allison—is that the tragic Panther was incensed at being sent on his first railway journey—he had previously raced at his Newmarket home—and was then disgusted to find a mile and a-half of noisy people waiting for him at the end of that new and irritating form of transit. Well, we shall never know. A Judge's Error In this book there are tales of sharpers who tried to fleece a noble young lord at Oxford by pretending to be his commission agents when they were really his welshing bookmakers, talcs of horses, races and people, of “flapping meetings,” of the judge who gave, as the winner of a race, a horse which had never even been a starter, and so on.