THE CAULFIELD CUP FAVOURITE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 419, 19 October 1889, Page 6

THE CAULFIELD CUP FAVOURITE.

With the Caulfield Cup now &o close on us, a glance at the fate of the favourite in connection with the race may not be unedifjing. Eleven Caulfield Cups have been run, and the actual first favourite has finished first on but one occasion, when Calma, who started about the greatest public fancy on record for this race, got home. Master Avenel, the lucky horse of 1881, was a twelve co one chance. Little Jack, who won the Cuiltield Cud the following year (1882), left the paddock at hundrens to five : Blink Bonnj', who ran away with the race in '84, went out almost friendless, fifty to one being fruitlessly offered up to the fall of the flag. The following year — when the disastrous catastrophe occurred Grace Darling, a hundred three chance, beat two other rank out--iders in Britisher and Coriolanus ; and although at the time her victory was generally attributed to a fluke springing from the accident, her subsequent marvellous run in the Melbourne Cup more than confirmed the Canltield form. In this mournfully memorable race the immense field of forty-one horses faced the starter. Ben Bolt pulled the Caultield Cup out of the fire in '86, and the year following Oakleio-h. another hundred to eightchance, experienced very little difficulty at the finish in disposing of the two outsiders Remus and Dunlop, who ran second and third. Last year it was thought Bravo, the favourite, could not lose, but the wellbacked Chicago, who started at 8 to 1, got home. From this it will be see that in past years the first favourite for the Caulfield Cup has had a bad time.