A RECORD OF SPORT.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 751, 24 April 1877, Page 2

A RECORD OF SPORT.

(Written specially for the * Waikato Times.' Auckland, 18fch April. The disqualification of Fishhook for being " pulled " in the Flying Stakes at Oamaru is prominent among turf topics at the present moment. Of coarse, we hear all ports of opinions expressed on the matter, bnt I think the general verdict is " serve him right." O'Brien is, I think, deserving of little pity, lie has a heavy punishment it is true, but it must be remembered, that even if his horse is, not worth a shilling now, he has already reape4 a rioh harvest with the Dunedin Cap, Forbury Handicap, and Flying Handicap, and the Publicans' Handicap at Oamaru, all of which he had won oft the reel. It Was very absurd the Oamaru stewards disqualifying the horse without fur? nishing either the rider or the owner with a notice j and the Dunedin Jookey Club stewards might well write desiring to know the reason of such a singular omission. The Canterbury Jookey Club have, I see, disqualified Derrett from riding where their rules are in foree. Pulling horses is unfortunately too much in vogue in the colonies, and unless detections are followed by severe penalalties the practice will become even more common. What chance has a man who runs his horses on the square against rogues who think no artifice should be negleoted, which is calculated to get their animals well in for the big handicaps 1 The Dunedin papers were very wrath with the its porrespondent's remarks on Dan O'Brien's tactics with Fishhook before the weights were published for the Dunediu Qup, but I imagine the sequel will show them that the strictures of the ' Press '■ were not albagether unc tiled for. The meeting of Guy Fawkes and Templeton in the N.O.T.Q. Cup was the great event of the Oamaru meetiug. Guy had only 61b the worst of the weights, and was made favourite at 6 to 4> but Mr Delamain's game horse won easily, thus proving that his form with Puriri in the Queen's Plate at Dunedin was not much of a fluke. The meeting at Taranaki was

principally noticeable for the.form shown by the stud horse Opawa, who won four races carrying top «j|S§hts each time. C pwen MoGee has not made money mo>»f his West Goast tour, .r Maya small race JpWanMs n ®s *and I believe that sPfs pken Mieco.iy return Owen has hadlfor expenditure.jj§|c!rjkme/ made a rattling racfffwifch ruazelle for' the Taranaki Hurdle Race, but, though according to the • Taranaki Herald,' the spectators n ; hSu^hrsli^nl^^^6Tir*^^gT«B^ cided in favour of Gazelle. Mr -Walters has about paid his Isaak s Walton. . former won two races a£" bui? ' f4ave seen no report of the jneeting,' and. •can The oJcP .horse subsequently Je]l lame, and :was not able to out at ; the Cbristch'urch tfigetftigp; The rehand. Redwood has Evidently a, very jtiioe filly in Bribery, wha .won the grea,t Autumn ,and theflying Stakes.', i s;heis.by, traduperofttjpf, •Ethelred, ancL is evidently no disgrace to he»> parentage.* Pungajwerewere in the-Easter Handicap Bc'ofjed; alnWst Jfer first 'wifi"Bince*iaj§t" £u& %nlf tormance was nq, very meritorious one,, for. she; was only givingi-Bcibery, wjfaco had ;a> race 4n her?ftii!sady,»£lb > for the year. <Jn the Champagne Stakes, 'Mr r Webb*s**nomiftati6hß, Trump Card, a c^smif' colt by Traducer : -Revokb.'JanajJAntrier,, by jTraducer out of Tantrums had the

finish to themselves, and added fresh ; laurels to their,*already celebrated bire. Every day shows more conclusively the superiority of Tradttceri over all the other thoroughbred staP jiotost in : ifie' colony. * ? Df'th# thirty youngsters which"were? nominated for this': race : -no leSs4han: sixteen were;by:thiiß New Zealand -Stockwell, and they furnished the leading three at the finish,, jthe third being Tell-tale, a brown £ljy from Brunette. Merille or Merilla, a bay filly by Tra'duceV but of Opera; bel fonging s .to, .Bob Ray,, : .was the favourite at the ..start, but she was. left, at the post and never, got om terms with the leaders. "The great Autumn Handicap: Was contested ; by thirteen out of thei§67ettteeti!as- - and doe&not seem to have been anything senstional, the success of. the favourite and..th'e 1 form dis'-„ played by Guyi. Fawkes, Who could* ; have beaten Pungawerewere if A Bribery had been ' unequal to the ! task, being the most' noteworthy features about it. The St Leger was a canter. for ] Puriri,, who had, Only Dead Heat to-oppose ,him. Our old friend Isaak Walton showedin the Selling Race, and was made a' great favourite, but he was .compelled to play second fiddle to one of the. Champagne .Stakes competitors, Foulplay, -a-Traduce.r colt, jjelongingtdMrMallobki *"■■ * i The South Canterbury' Jockey Club races will be held at Timaru on j Thursday and Friday next, but they are ndt likely ■ to evokamuch^Atfck- ; land interest *" By the _ time those notes appear print the nomina-, ■ tions for, the Birthday -Handicap, the Autumn Handicap and the Steepleschase at our own Autumn meeting" Will have been received, as-they are due on Friday, the 20th inst. They are expected to be very good, and acapital meeting is looked forward to.' Of the closed races, the Champagne Stakes is not unlikely to produce an interesting-stiruggle. The favourites at present are Mr Walters' cnesnut filly Venus "Transit by Derby or Sledmere- from Peeress, and' Mr James Watts' chesnut colt LongV lands, by Totara Marchioness. The former is yet untried in public, but is highly spoken of by thqse who have seen her. She is,describedto me'i as a long low filly, with short legs, and .plenty of substance, and very easy sweeping action. As she is the first of Peeress' get, her debut will be watched with some interest. Longlands has already made a name for himself, by running a dead heat, over a mile course, with a moderate three-year-old, at Napier, and then* winning the decider easily.' Both are forward in condition, and will be quite fit to race. Besides these, Mr Buckland has a good looking black fiily engaged, Queen 'Mab, by D;erby—rUna j agqod judge tells me she is only so so, but. 'I know, her owner thinks she is, no ''small potatoes." Mr Lennard's Venus, a chesnutt filly, by Sledmere, from Minnie Athol, Mr R. Wynyard's. b.g., Jessamine, by S,ledinere, frqm Mignonette, and Mr Bectfjelds Clip? stone, a brown colt, by Derby—v Ratapa—are the other probable starters of the twelve nominated.

Of. the St. Leger, I, cannot speak so hopefully; in fact, I am afraid it will partake of the qnesjdecjqe.ssj which makes our. prqvinciaf LjerbYes and Legers so much money thrown away Now, Hippocampus is thrown out of it, we have nothing capable of beating whateye.v southern candi. date onqoses to put in an appearance. Titania, Puriri, Mararo,, Wrangler, Middleton, Danebury and Dead Heat hare all paid the preliminary 2 soys., and I expect the qwnecs will arrange among themselyes one shall come up and carry away the money. By the way, I notice that, next season, Oanteubuny and Qtagq are tq amalgamate their L)erbies and Legers, and run one Derby at Ohristchurch, and one Leger at Dunedin, making tue added money £%50 in each case. The Southerners have already fyeen, applied to tq consent to carry this principal right through the Colony, but Lhey will not do so. It only remains for the provincial districts of I

the North Island to oome to some such arrangement as Dunedin and ChristchUrch, and then, perhaps, we may tion. prestonpibsurd "absolutely -nj||pMp. y;|»r, iGg|eUeve, it ||fiiuffli3ed an earlier most J®j>ajK a y; arid TuesWanganui. Meeting for the latter end of May. The nominations are to be sent in by *«rrfi»S^pKflroftlihe-month; and- tie acceptances on the.. 14th. The principal event will be the Grand ,of 150 sovs. The Oamaru Steeplechase Club is annptihcedtfor the Royal the big •' chase" has ito attrabti?e„to strangers. ', I Turning' from horseraoing /to prieket? W'are reminded of the close of the season, by some of the foptball* ,clnbsj-holding their meet* ings, and 'arranging their pro-' grammes fpr ;r jbhe epming, campaign. The second Combined Cricket, "on ithe other side," I -think, was more

preditable to Australia than the formed, 'in Which they were' victorious?- entirely through the wonderful score put together by Banner man, but in thjfc pther, did.well. After \ ithe first* innikgtf had been'played, it looked a. an orange that the Australians would neatly, if not suffer■ ; a <; 6ne innings defeat, but they buckled to their uphill taßteiikel the sons of Britons they are,, .and not only wiped off their but put on 121 in addition, leaving no certainty of even a win for the Englishmen. The table-victory for the Antipodes could not, however, be brought off, and England won by four wickets. Kanherman looked like "coming off" "again inthe second innings, and When he "had 'scored 33, they were obliged to put Ulyett, " the fingersplitter," on to him again. It had the'desired effect, for he skied the first ball, and was caught by Jupp. There is a'irpmarkable feature about the scoring in; tjhis innings, which may ? have escaped the notice of my readers, ahd'is worth calling atten- . {ion to. In any' innings it is, as a rule, safe to lay, at least 20 to 1 (the "correct odds are, I believe, 6bo'ttti'so to. 1) that three players will make more runs than tha other6ight. 'The" odds would- have been ; in , this instances, for while Gregory (4s), Thompson (4:1), and Kelly (35) made 119 between them, the other eight scored 126. In this calculation, I have omitted the .14 " sundries," and only counted runs .from the bat. My reader, if they . have not : tested this singular feature of cricket before, can do so by applying it to the fifty or sixty cricket scores they will find in any summer copy of "Bells Life," or "The Field," they may stumble upon. I am rather surprised at an old cricketer like Spufcherton allowing his-private notes on the play of individual members of the teams the ! English" Eleven have, played against in New Zealand to be published, Gopd judge as he is, he would be the first to admit the impossibility of selecting the best men in a team after only seeing them play once. His remarks are likely to cavse some jealousy. Vates.