HORSE JUMPING IN AMERICA.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 6053, 9 February 1892, Page 2

HORSE JUMPING IN AMERICA.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—No doubt many of your sporting readers were surprised to read some ti.ne ago that a horse called Filemaker jumped 7ft. of timber in America, thus beating the record, but I fancy it will surprise them still more to read how it was done, as tho enclosed clipping from the English Sporting and Dramatic News (which is a thoroughly reliable paper on sporting matters) shows :—Thus a correspondent writes from Georgia, U.S.A.:—"In your circular notes I lately read with interest the paragraph relating to the high jumping ' performance of Filemaker in America. Perhaps a little light thrown on this business might be of interest to some of your readera. As you are perhaps aware, the performance takes place at night under the electric light, and to the accompaniment of brass bands. The obstacle is made up of a succession of round bars, about four inches in diameter, and extremely pliable, the top bar being firmly held at the ends by two men. The horse is started at a fair gallop on the opposite side of the ring from the bars, till he comes within about three lengths of it, when he is pulled up short, and he then proceeds to make an effort to get his forelegs, and ' more or less ' (usually the latter) of his body over. If ho succeeds in getting sufficiently far enough over not to fall, the bar is held up ; but if he ' scrapes' hard enough to warrant a fall the bar is dropped, and the horse is let down in safety. Hardly 'a_ safe conveyance over a timber country was the impression conveyed to me. 1 rantic applause is the outcome of this great feat, and the rider (whose ability to retain, I can hardly say, his natural position on the saddle—let us call it his interregnum between the tail and the head) seems to depend on the size and strength of the horse s ears, gracefully bows his thanks to theaudi ence and resumes his attempts. The horse I saw was not Filemaker, but Roseberry, and he was credited with clearing 6ft. 9Jin., I think. By a New York paper I see that Filemaker, at the present horse show, refuses to perform in public and sulks, though jurapinß all right in practice" A sensible and self-respecting horse ! I don t think any of our hunting men here would call that jumping, and the best of our good men here would hesitate to, ride a. horse that took his fences in that fashion over a sft. three-rail fence. Compare this circus performance with old Greyhound's jumping record in the old days of thu Meralie ahow, when I, and many others here, have seen him clear sft. llin. of timber in first-clas* hunting form. While we are on ' h«r.sey subjects, I would like to call the Waikato Agricultural Show committee s attention to a small paragraph that appears in Saturday s Herald in the sporting column re the system adopted atshows for jumping hunters :—The English sportsman, Mr BurdettCoatts, makes some very sensible remarks on the system adopted at shows for judging hunters. He objects to a high limit to be jumped, and advocates judging by stylo of umping. He says:-" After all the raison d'etre in the contests is the sport of hunting, and the style in which a hunter takes his fences is of infinitely greater importance than two inches or three inches higher or lower when once you go beyond the height of a fair hunting fence." Of course there ib a great difference of opinion as to what constitutes a fair hunting fence, and no doubt the public who pay to see the fun, and are not going to ride like as much excitement as they can get) for their money, and the more "spills 7, the more fun. But this is not what the show of hunters is (or ought to be) got up for. lam of opinion that the fences at the last show at Cambridge were too big and formidable and that it is hardly fair to ask a clever seasoned old hunter who knows his business (and this class of horae generally hates " larking") to jump such big fences in cold blood. Whereae with smaller fences more horses would jump boldly and well without refusing, and the judges would have an easier task in picking out the best 'former." If Mr Editor, you don't think this letter a "bit too mixed, and while we are still hearing a good deal about the Waihi-Tauranga 40 miles race, the following may interest your readers, and it bears out the old saying that blood will tell:—A forty mile race is cruelty, but one took place not long since at Monte Video, according to the River Plate Sport and Pastime, published at Buenos Ayres. The object of it was to test the relative endurance and staying Powers of the native horse and of the thoroughbred. The course there is a mile round, and the conditions of this contest were forty times round, with lOst in the saddle. Eighteen started—poor beasts!—but only four finished, the native horses were quite out of it, the general records. The winner turned up in Sarah, a thoroughbred imported mare, and she did the distance m 2 hours 13 minutes an average of a mile in 3min. 19Jsec. which is remarkably good when we consider that the Derby has taken the winner over two minutes to go a mile. Another thoroughbred, called Oro Sellado, was second. It is to be hoped that the question having once been tested, no more experiments of such a t-erriblv trying character will be made,—l m etc. H. Bollock-Webster,