BITS OF TURF.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 473, 21 May 1890, Page 5

BITS OF TURF.

Tho first forfeit for the Sydney Birthday Handicap and Royal Stakes fell due last Saturday, but the Press Association has not thought it worth while to cable the names of those scratched. Hilda has been established a favourite for the race, and there is good reason to think that Bhe will go to the post one of the best favourites. Takapu was among tho starters for the Egraont Steeplechase, but did not finish. He is suffering from cold. J. Rae is expected back from Sydney on Tuesday. His future campaign of operations will then be known.

An Aucklander who visited the Egmont meeting tells me that there was only £3O (not £330 as telegraphed) on the totalisator in the Hurdle Race, won by the outsider Waipipi, and in which investors had their money returned. Darnley has passed into Mr S. H. Gollan’s hands. The price paid is said to be £l7O. J. B. Williamson is handling his yearling colts, Orestes by Nordenfeldt Clybomnestra, and the colt by Sword DanceElfin. Orestes was being ridden on the Ellerslie course during the week. Mr J. Lennard also has a couple of yearlings in hand, viz., a filly by Hippocampus—Rosarina, and a filly by King Cole—Brassalis. Fishmonger, the Maiden Plate winner at Avondale races, has been daily schooled at Ellerslie this week with a view to forthcoming jumping races. He shapes fairly well.

From Napier I learn that R. Gooseman has in work a nice-looking bay four-year-old filly by Guinea, out of Hippona, who ha& only been up a short time. She was purchased at the New Zealand Stud Company’s sale in 1887 by Mr Allan McLean. Satelite has been sold, and he is now in Mr A. Ellingham’s hands to train. Ernie Huxley, who was educated in the Hon. James White’s stables, and who rode so many seconds to Hales, has been engaged by Mr Brodribb, of Melbourne, as head rider at a salary of £3OO per annum. Mr Brodribb is the gentleman who purchased Titan at such a figure, and Huxley has ridden the great gelding frequently, and knows his temper thoroughly. A consignment of well-bred trotting stock were brought over to Sydney on the last trip of the s.s. Alameda, including a shapely dark bay horse, I.M.P. by Whippleton, 5 years; Alfred G., a handsome three-year-old colt, by Zitka (a son of the famous trotting sire Electioneer); Vulcan, a dark bay horse, 6 years, by Alaska; bay gelding, by Dan Vorheiss; a powerful dark chestnut horse, and three mares. The

stock were purchased by Mr Burns in California State, and arrived in excellent condition, having experienced a good passage from San Francisco. A writer in an American snorting'paper makes an interesting comparison ot the various modes of locomotion, with the following results:—A man can swim a mile in 26min 52sec; he can walk it in 6min 23sec ho can cover it on snow shoes in smin 39fsec; he can run the distance in 4min 12i'sec; he can ride it on a tricycle in 2min 49 2-sth sec ; on a bicycle in 2min 29 4-sth sec; and he can skate it in 2min 12 3-sth sec. Behind a trotting horse he gains nearly 4sec by covering the distauce in 2min 3|sec, while on a running horse he gallops the mile in lmin 39|sec, and last and fastest he sits in a railroad train and flies over a mile of the steel rails in 50^eec.