SPORTING.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 18, 16 July 1920, Page 7

SPORTING.

The Winton Jockey Club will hold lts annual general meeting of raembers next Thursday evening. The Birchwood Hunt Club's fiagged steeplechases will be held at Strathmore next Wednesday. A good view of tbe races should be obtained from the main road. Fortunately Sir George Clifford is too fair-minded a man to aJlow even this sort of insult to warp his judgment in the dispute to come before his conference this w,eek, and no man in the Dominion will be more honest in his desire, nor more anxious in his efforts to bring about a settlement between jockeys, that is the better class and more reasonable members of the profession, and the owners, And so the great Lochella was beaten! But, barring accidents, what a cakewalk he would have had in the Welington Steeplechase had Charlie Christie decided to start him in that race instead of in the hurdle race. The Wellington country is small, and as the going was good it must have been the pace set by the early leaders that brought all but the four placed horses down The owners and tbe jockeys have always been on good terms (of course there ara very many times when it is essential for their own welfare that they should be), and there are very few owners who are not generous when. it comes to winning fees with their jockeys. Instead of a union to protect » the. interests of the younger boys it would be much wiser if the Racing Conference would appoint threo of four good strong-minded matrons to look after theon, put them to bed early, see they don't waste their money on flash clothes, teach them a few good nursery games, and give them an hour or so of education each day. Then they would find less time for that good old service game, "two-up." The whole trouble has aris^n, in my mind, for the lack of surveill&iice of these youths both by their employers and the Racing Conference. Thw stopping of Slv George Clifford tr&velling on one the Union S.S. Coy's steamers to the North Island reminds we of a good story I heard a couple of months ago whan a well-known trainer and a secretary to a labour union wero discussing the jockey's trouble and other labour matters. Each gave his opinion very freely, and finally the trainer maintained that the constitution of the country was all wrong. "What's wrong with the constitution any way," demanded the labour secretary. "It should be alterad so as to provide that Bill Massey should be premier of the North Island, Joey Hanan, premier of the South Island, you premier of Dog Island, and none of you allowed to leave your own territories," snapped the trainer, and the labour secretary was so paralysed by this broadside that he didn't racover in time to take up his side of the argnment again. - I saw Joe Wallis the other day in a billiard room, hobbling round with a stick and evidently in charge of a couple of tables. Poor Joe sbill carries the effects of a bad spill on the local course twelve months ago last April, and I am afraid will contiaue to do so for the rest of his life. He has had a hell of a time with operations to a leg in the local hospital, but is always cheerful, and trying hard, now he has been promoted to be an outpatient, to earn a few shillings. It makes one proud of our management of racing to hear Joe speak of the manner the Insurance Fund has and is treating him. He is being well looked after, but many of his old friends can help him by patronising his tables when they want a game of billiards. Joe was always a game horseman, and he needed to be, too, for some of the rides he has had on the operating table during the past fifteen months. Talking of taxing racing cluhs reminds me of rather a good story I heard which occurred in one of the town schools the other day. The teacher was explainiiig taxes to a class composed of boys and girls whose ages averaged abont 12 to 13, and at the end of the lesson asked all those children whoae fathers paid income tax to

hold up their hand. All except one, the son of a poor but honest working family, sat tight, bnt this lad held up his hand much to the astonishment of the master, who should have known better than ask such a question from children wno were not likely to be taken into the confidence of their parents as to whether they were earning enough to have to pay this very unpopular tax. The boy saw by the master's expression that the wealth of his father was doubted, and still holding up his hand exclaimed : "I've seen him pay it, and every time he pays he gets a dog collar." Really some of our teachers are brainy fellows!

"Firemen's Sympathetic Action," was the nature of the heading in the "Thunderer," on Tuesday morning, over the information that Sir George Clifford had been forced by the stokers on the ferry steamer to return ashore at Lyttelton. Sir George was en route to Wellington to preside at the annual meeting of the New Z.ealand Racing Conference, where there is a chance of the quarrel between some meddlesome outsiders who are trying to rig a Jockey's Union and the Conference. As Sk George left the steamer he truthfully remarked that they were stopping a friend, but those who know the president of the Racing Conference, never for one moment dreamed that he would not get to the meeting. And very probably the baronet has never enjoyed a trip to Wellington so much as he did this year. To be treated as he was shows that "mobrule" is still one of the weaknesses of ignorant unionism, and it looks very much as if the leaders in this silly muddle are indeed ignorant.