Sporting

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 49, 15 July 1914, Page 5

Sporting

THE OOUXTRY CLUBS.

A NEW ASSOCIATION" FORMED.

lty Telegraph .—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. l Ihc annual conference of delegates from country racing clubs was held tonight, Mr. Albert Bruce (Thames) presiding. Sinbe the previous annual meeting a ballot had been taken among coun-i try clubs on the question of forming ft Country Racing Clubs' Association. Twenty-eight had favored the proposal, anil only two opposed it. It was decided, after lengthy discussion, to form the Association, and th<! following officers were appointed:—President, Mr. A. Bruce (Thames); vicepresident, Mr. A. Murdock (Kujnara); executive, Messrs K. W. Alison (Auckland), F. J. Lysnar (Gisborne), H. Von Asch (Kortli Canterbury) and G. M. Proctor (Oamaru). 111 the event of 'Mr, Hunter's Bill being passed, it was decided to support the restoration of totalisator permits to those clubs which lost them as the result of the Racing Commission's recommendations.

TURF TOPICS.

Mr. Charles Reed has (says the Now York Herald) just died in Sumner County in obscurity. He was one of the moat noted turf men of his day, and the last of the thoroughbred breeders that made Tennessee famous a quarter of a .century ago as the producer of racing horses. Mr. Reed lived in Tennessee, and was proprietor of Fairview. which he purchased with a fortune made, in operating pool-rooms and gamtblinghouses in New York and Saratoga. Hig bold stroke in the purchase cf the imported St. Blaise for one bid of £2,0,000 gave him a wide reputation. He waM for a time part owner of the Saratoga Club, which afterwards became the property of Richard Canfield. He was in-:> strumental in making Saratoga famous as a racing centre, and built a home there at a cost of more than £20,000. The fascination of the English Derby is strikingly illustrated by the fact that'/ a number of turf patrons boaSt of having seen it 50 or 60 times. When the DuKe of Queemvbury (old "Q"), who saw the first Derby iii 1780, was 80, and in very feeble health, his friends tried to die-

suade him from going to the Derby of 1810. "Not go!" was his indignant retort. "Why, I have not missed a Derby for 30 years!" He went, but it was for the last time, for he died before the year was out. Among other famous devotees of the Derby was Lord Palmerston, who is said to have spent Derby Day at Epsom at least half-a-hundred times. The last race he Baw was in 1805, when he said, referring to Gladiateur: "If th« foreigner wins I shall not survive tho year." Gladiateur won, and the follow-

ing October Palmerston was sleeping in , Westminster' Abbey.