SPORT OF KINGS OVERSEAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 October 1939, Page 11

SPORT OF KINGS OVERSEAS

PERSONAL AND OTHERWISE. It is reported from Sydney that A. E. Ellis will do the riding for F. D. Jones’s stable at the Wellington spring meeting. In England an apprentice can claim an allowance of 51b in all selling races, in handicaps for which not more than £5OO is added to a sweepstakes, and in handicap plates of an advertised value not exceeding £5OO. He loses this allowance when he has ridden 40 winners, apprentice races excepted, or alternatively when he reaches the age of 21. The services of a capable boy who can also claim the 51b allowance are, therefore, keenly sought for fancied runners. Their mounts are carefully selected by their respective masters, and its is customary when an apprentice is nearing his fortieth winner for his master to obtain from any owner who engages him the definite promise of a substantial cash present in the event of success, usually to be calculated by the odds at which the horse starts. Thus the services of a fashionable apprentice may in some cases be granted on the understanding that the present is to be “the odds to £25." The longer the starting price if the horse wins, the larger the present. Riding fees and presents are shared equally between master and apprentice, the bulk of the money due to the latter being saved, as a rule, for him until, he has completed his time.