SPORTING MEMORANDA.

Waikato Times, Volume XVI, Issue 1373, 21 April 1881, Page 3

SPORTING MEMORANDA.

Loch Lomond wrenched himself, badly while training for the Napier races. Grand Flaneur was at 5 to 1 for the Sydney Gold Cup when the last boat left j Richmond and Progress 100 to 10. The total amount won by Grand Flaneur, after deducting owner's stake, is £7945. «iL, „ ■ York ran inside a post whcnirajsj&bout finishing in the Greymouth^SpJfleld Handicap. $$|||p^'' 1 Lord Falmbuth's Bal Gal is' doing 1 work again and has been,backed m low as 5 to 1 for the Guineas. . ' The nominations for the Victorian Coursing Club. Derby and ,Oaka stakes • have closed, the former with 59 and the latter with 7J, t . , , „ , < , AM brothel to Gr*nd Ilwenr will

be sold during the forthcoming Randwidk Meeting, He haa never been trained or ridden. , Harry Constable the celebrated English jockey died at Epsom on the 17th February. He wasted away to 801bs. He Was many years in the employ of Lord Roaebery.

THE DISQUALIFICATION OF GOLDEN CROWN. The Saturday Advertiser (Dunedin) is very warm on the action of the stewards of the Panmure Races in disqualifying Golden Crown. Our contemporary says : — "Lot us recapitulate the salient point: of the oase. A "person" fancies that a certain horse is a "moral," and lays odds of 3to 1 on him. Nothing strange so far ; such fancies and such odds are of everyday occurence. The owner congratulates the backer, and offers to stand in with him ; but on the latter mentioning several other wagers he had booked, the owner declines to " whack it" beyond a small amount. A perfectly reasonable objection ; the backer, evidently not a wise man, may have made some very foolish bets. The "person offers to lay 10 to 1 on the horse if the owner permits him to select the jockey, which the owner refuses to do. V ery proper of the owner ; in fact, he would have been blameable if he had acted otherwise. If such offers were generrlly accepted, all sor^s of swindles might bo worked, for a backer could easily lay a " schlanter" wager and have the horse pulled, to the detriment of the public interest. Then a disposition if manifested to lay against the " moral," and back something else. Nothing unusual about that ; might not the " moral " have gone crooked in the meanwhile? After starting, the "moral" meets with an accident — quite a common occurrence— and is thereafter pulled into a walk (a proper thing to do if the horse were injured), and loses the race by two lengths. As a fitting finale, the stewards disqualify the horse — not, mark you, for ever, or for a certain time, but for a race which he did not win. The whole afiair is very probably exaggerated, and the evidence against the owner is of the slenderest kind, according to my reading. However, whether Mr Byers is a hero or the reverse is not what I want to get at. I should not have referred to the matter at all but to draw attention to the following sentence which occurs in the telegram : — " Some Southerners are believed to have been concerned in ' stiffening ' the horse." This is rich. The Panmure Handicap was worth £25. Fancy " some Southerners '' — not one Southerner, nor two Southerners, but " some " Southerners — going all the way up to Panmure to work a swindle through the madium of a £25 handicah. What a haul they would get if the swindle were succes&ftl. Only think for a moment of the half-crowns and fiveshilling pieces which could have been out of it, and is to be wondered at that Oamaru and G-reymouth and other localities at which races were held about the same date should have been deserted by the Southern talent? I expect all "the boys" — or at any rate all who know where Panmure is — crowded there. De- ! pend upon it they would neglect their thousand-pound books on the Great Autumn races, and their collecting of moneys over the Dunedin races, for the sake of rushing off to Panmure. The cunning dogs ! They knew where the sugar was. If it were possible to be serious over so ridiculous a sentence as that I have quoted, I would point out that these frequent charges against the Southern men, of working all sorts of swindles in the Auckland district, are becoming perfectly sickening to us down here. Ask the bookmakers themselves and they will tell you that there is nothing to be made up there excepting on very rare occasions, and this is borne out by the fact that very few of our Dunedin professionals ever attend even the annual race meeting. They say that the folks up there think it very strange when they refuse to book ten and five shilling wagers, and that the public at large have no idea of wagering as it is understood in the South. If this is true — and 1 don't know any reason why a bookmaker should not be as veracious as anyone else — all these stories about the malpractices of the Southern men must be either exaggerations or foundationless inventions. Supposing our Southerners to be as artful and' as devoid of principle as Old Nick himself, they must be held unconvicted of the charges laid against them if for no other reason than that they have not the opportunity to work the swindles which the Northerners have at different times charged them with." Bute Gown.