SPORTING NOTES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3079, 9 April 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

SPORTING NOTES.

(By ],k Noiu.). Tub South Auckland Racing Club may be congratulated on the excellent entries which they have received for their Autumn Meeting, to be held on the 23rd April. The course is in grand couditiou at present, and given fine weather on the 23rd, everything points to the_ Autumu Meeting being as successful as its predecessors.

At the Warwick Farm races held on Thursday, March 14th, Mr J C. Booth's Brown Bess won the March Handicap of lOOsovs. The mare won as she liked by a length. She started at 10 to 1. Mr D. McKinnon, the popular Waikato sportsman, had the good luck to have £10 invested on Scot Free in the Napier Park Cup. He paid the nice dividend of £13 18s, and the owner drew £139 from the totalisator, in addition to the stake.

Mr Alf Kelly, of Mount Albert, Auckland, Bustained a serious loss last week in the death of two valuable fillies—Fusilade—Kit and Fusilade—lima. They are supposed to have been poisoned. Says an English writer: "The Duke of Cumberland, otherwise called " the butcher," bred both Eclipse and Herod, and it is impossible to "conceive what our horses would be like now had Eclipse and Herod never existed. It is to be noted, too, that Eclipse was an eighty-guinea yearling. Think of that, ye small buyers 1" At Aspendale Park, Victoria, on the 11th ult., the New Zealand mare Omaha,-half-sister to Ahua, made hacks of her field in the Trial Stakes, making the most of a good "send-off" by the starter, who assisted her to the extent of about a couple of lengths, which advantage she never lost. The winner romped over the five furlongs and a-quarter in lniin. Ssec. One of the humorists of the racecourse on Dunedin Cup Day was the man who, after two races had been run, besought me to " Buy a list of tips, sir ; only a penny; have spotted three winners already." It is said that the jockeys riding at Webt Side Park, United States, are allowed to ride in overcoats and heavy wraps of various descriptions, these not being considered as over weight. At the meeting of the V.R.C. committee on the Bth ult., the disqualification was removed from 197 horses and ponies that had been disqualified for running at unregistered meetings. The Sydney people are not in love with Scots Grey. One of the leading writers there says :—" We may have the pleasure of seeing Scots Grey in a selling race, entered for nil, one of these days." Sir Modred's sensational son Tournament has most likely reached the end of his erratic racing career. He is suffering from a peculiar form of hip trouble, which makes it doubtful if ever he can be trained again. The first steeplechase run in England was on the 30th March, 1526. It was won by Captain Horatio Ross on a horse named Clinker. The distance was four miles and and was from Barby Holt to Billesden Coplow. Leicestershire, and the time llmin. losec. Clinker was opposed by Captain Douglas 3 ou Radical. There is plenty of money to be won on the French turf, the total value for the races run for last season being £228,138, of which £174,700 was bona fide added money. Sportsman says that when Waiter fell at] Williamstown it was generally believed that the jockey, H. Underwood, had escaped with only a shaking, but a subsequent examination showed that he had unfortunately broken one of his collar bones, and therefore the New Zea-cross-country jockey will perforce have to remain an absentee from the pigskin for a ahurt time. The last English papers contain the news that the " warning off " against T. Loates and Calder, the well-known jockeys, has been cancelled. Loates will be remembered as the crack jockey of

1890. When the stewards of the Jockey Club called on him to explain his betting transactions be behaved so saucily that not only was his license withheld, but he was " warned off " into the bargain. Escapade (New Zoa'and-bied) was second to the English-bred St. Swithin, beating Cyclops, in the Criterion Stakes at the last Calcutta meeting. The flying Marvel, having had a 3hort spell, has put in an appsarance ou the Ra'idwick tracks agiiu with a view probably to autumn events of the A.J.C. It is said that shortly after the announcement was made that subscriptions at3oogs each would be received for Ormonde's service, requests were sent from the United States to Mr Webster for the entire series of services. All,

however, but one were refused. What is it, asks the Sportsman, that mikes a sire? Pot-8-os raced for seven years and scored 35 wins ; but, on the other hand, Newminster, after a somewhat flukey triumph in the Leger. failed to carry Sst to victory in the Cambridgeshire, was beaten for the Goodwood and Djncaster Cups, and in the two following years showed no form. His son Hermit a good deal resembled him in this, for Julius fairly broke the heart of that subsequently great sire. We may take it, therefore, that while the horse who has won great races has established a prima facie case for stud success, the moderate racehorse is by no means to be despised any more than is the moderate mare. Time was when Alec. Taylor would have sold Malabar for 20gs, and yet she has bred Coroinandel.

I see by a recent cable that the erst New Zealandor, Tirrailleur, succeeded in vunniu" second to Swing, a second-rater, in the St. Kilda Cup, in Australia. This "splendid" specimen of Musket's progeny, it was fondly hoped, would have followed up the illustrious career of the celebrated Carbine, but, alas.' there is nothing so sure as disappointment. Tirailleur certainly did appropriate a few big events, viz :—The New Zealand Cup, Hawke's Buy Guiueas. Canterbury Cup, Auckland Derby, and Wanganui Derby. However, his owner, Mr Gollan never attempted to race this son of Musket unless the weight was of the lightest aud the fields comparatively small. Take, for instance, the New Zealand Cup of 1889. when he ran as a three-year-old. He only had 6st 51b in the saddle against a small field, but ho took three seconds longer to do it in than Mauton in the previous year. He also had to meet very small field* in Wanganui, Hawke's Bay, and in the majority of the principal races won by him in New Zealand. lam of opinion that a good many horses with respectable records at present in New Zealand would have done as well—nay a great deal better, than that exceptionally heavy " frost" Tirailleur has done in [ Australia.

" Reference hn,3 repeatedly been made in our column'," says the Argus, " to the superiority of the New Zealand bred horses, as shown in our races, and it must be admitted that with ten absolute wins out of twenty-four races (or eleven wins if Reprisal be counted in) thoy have achieved a remarkable record at the V.R.C. meeting just over. But the record is improved when we add to the ten wins the fact that they were second or third ten times. Both Hurdle races and the Steeplechase were amongst the races won by the New Zealanders, and in the First Hurdle Race the first and second, in the Second Hurdle race all three placed horses, and in the Steeplechase the first and third horses came from New Zealand.