SPORTING.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 July 1917, Page 7

SPORTING.

RACING FIXTURES. August 16, 18-Caaterbory J. 0. Grand National. September s«—-Marton J.O. Spring.

TURF TOPICS. (By "Moturoa") The racing world is at present idling in the doldrums—the between seasons, as it were. The years racing is over, and on Wednesday next, August 1, co-lonial-bred horses will have their birthday, and,the new season opens. There will be no racing, however, until a fortnight from Thursday next, when the Grand National meeting opens, and in the meantime things are as flat as pancakes that mother used to make. There is simply nothing doing. Horse owners and trainers are incoherent or contradictory as to the future movements of their charges. There i« a heap of certainty, as well as uneasiness, amongst the punters, and the bewildered and frantio sporting scribes have got down to slanging one another for "lifting copy" and otherwise leaning on one another in this time of extreme blankness. 'Twas ever so, Horatio, but the appearance of the National acceptances towards the end of the week will see a change from the winter of our dullness and discontent to the glorious spring of expectation and enjoyment. Matters will quickly right themselves, the indefinite giving way to the definite, and the wrangling to good-fellow-ship. (Thank goodness that's settled). The racing season 1917-18 bids fair to | be almost na successf\d as those of the wonderful last decade. Truly, there has been a great boom in racing, and not even the trials of war can damp the sporting spirit. Thanks to the good ser vices rendered by the Racing and Trotting conferences we have been let off lightly with a one-tbird curtailment of racing days. This was more satisfactory than expected, and it is a matter for gratification that we can go on doing the good work for another season at least. Racing clubs, both directly and indirectly, have raised more money for war funds than all the killjoy bodies in the Dominion combined. The sportsman, mostly of the" "easy come, easy go" variety as regards financial matters, has been ever ready to give generously and give often to every appeal, and on top of this unanimous, spontaneous response has been the steadily-increasing contribution to a government \ that needs every penny in taxes of all kinds to carry out its weighty obligations to the Homeland. Gross receipts, dividend*, stakes—everything has been taxed, and the taxes will increase. But who grumbles? Thumbs down to the wastrel who e'er he be.

The Hon. Gilbert Carson, M.L.C., speaking to his own pet killsport fraternity in Wanganui the other day, is reported to have said that it is tbe "churchmen," and not the 'racing people" who were quickest to take up rifle and Bword in the present war. The first question is, "Can a churchman be a sportsman?" or put it the other way round, if you like. The majority of our owners, trainers and jockeys are good (to fair) churchgoers. Some of our leading owners, from Sir Geo. Clifford down, are leading lights of their various churches. In fact, racecourse winnings have built churches before to-day. This insinuation is surely a new one on us. The second, and possibly more unfair statement—being a direct assertionis that racing people were not equally prompt to answer the Empire's call as their so-called churchmen brothers. The statement is one that could be refuted in a thousand ways. Let the number of returned members of the main body and earlier reinforcements, who are daily seen sport on our racecourses, speak for themselves. Weren't I they sports? Or did tbey acquire their taste for sport on foreign shores? Truly, some of us may view life through the misty end of a long glass, but pity tjbe crowd that, deep in the narrow rut, of their own digging, gaze with stunted vision on what God intended to be a wide, wide world.