SPORT OF KINGS OVERSEAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 October 1939, Page 9

SPORT OF KINGS OVERSEAS

PERSONAL AND OTHERWISE

When a horse she fancied lost at Ascot, a woman Wrote out a cheque for £12,000 to her boowmaker. Another women had a bet of £lO,OOO on the winner, states the “Sunday Chronicle,” London. Women in Britain are playing such a big part in turf gambling that a second woman bookmaker is to represent a leading firm on Tattersail s rails. Two West End London firms stated that 33 per cent of their clients are women, and one of the principal backers is a woman who invests between £4OOO and £6OOO a week. She bets £25 or more each way on a single horse, and stakes “tenners” in doubles and trebles. A well-known racing personality, regretting the fact that women are not supposed to bet in the royal enclosure, confided to a reporter recently that one titled woman would have invested probably £lOOO with him that Ascot week, but was obliged to have a few surreptitious bets through men friends. There are no women who can be styled “professional gamblers,” but many times in the course of a year a woman s bet causes a longish-priced horse to come tumbIng down to warm favouritism.

The former New Zealand trainer, J. Fryer, now at Caulfield, recently won a race at Ascot with a three-ycar-old colt by Foxbridge from Green Linnet'. It was the colt’s first start, and he was the medium of solid wagering. Manurere was bred by Fryer, who won several races with Green Linnet, including a Telegraph Handicap at Trentham on Wellington Cup day at a long price. Fryer tells a good story as to how Manurere was named. It appears that one day in New Zealand ho invited an old Maori to have a look at the youngster, and immediately the Maori saw the colt he exclaimed “Manurere! Manurere!” which, by the way means flying bird. Fryer liked the name, so he decided to register the name of Manurere for the colt. It it apt, too. as the colt’s dam is Green Linnet, by Tonbridge from Lady Egletine, by Paper Money from the imported mare Grey Linnet, by Thrush. Grey Linnet was’ the dam of the good horse Songbird.

Horses of three and five years have the best record in the two miles race ; at Flemington. Up to the present the race has been won on 21 occasions by three-year-olds, and the same number of times by five-year-olds. The four-year-olds have done almost as well, for they have won 19 Cups. The point against the horses of this age is that if they are stayers of class they are sure to have fairly heavy weights to carry. Occasionally one of that age gets in at about Bst, and he is then a danger to the younger horses which have to carry weight-for-age. Phar Lap had the greatest four-year-old record, for at that age he won with 9st 121 b. having been third at three years with 7st 61b. The winner that year was Nightmarch Ost 21b), four years. Other four-year-olds to win carrying 9st or over were Patron Ost 31b), and Windbag Ost 21b). Peter Pan was a five-year-old when he won with 9st 101 b, and Spearfelt the same age when he won with 9st 31b. The best performance by a winner of the Melbourne Cup at three years was by Newhaven. He carried 7st 131 b or 71b over w.f.a. Perhaps a more remarkable perform ance was that of the three-year-old Aurum, who carried 141 b over w.f.a., and ran third to Gaulus and The Grafter. He conceded those good horses about 401 b under the scale. Three-year-olds had better opportunity, of course in the days before a Derby winner was required to carry weight-for-age in the Cup. Briseis (who put up the unpat alleled record by winning the Oaks, the Derby and the Cup at the same meeting) carried only Ost. 41b in the Cup. She had won the A.J.C. Doncaster Handicap as a two-year-old. The ideal Cup horse is regarded as one who is a genuine stayer of four or five years carrying a light or a moderate weight.