SPORTING.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 34, 5 November 1920, Page 7

SPORTING.

Diggers, you had better be a bit with Hector Gray and Oratress on Saturday. Hector is worth % few pounds over a two mile journey. Bill Stone's luck, trainer, and a good maro like Silverpeak, may all combinp to enrol his name amongst the list of winners of the C.J.O. Steward's Handicap next Saturday. If Author Dillon fs as good as Jarden says he is he will win the Trotting ^up on Tuesday. If he isn't then Fred Holmes, the elder, and Trix Pointer will be very hard. Tommy Todd was in great form in opening the annual meeting at Wairio last Saturday evening, but he did not stay the journey too well. Certainly it was a long course, and, as he explained, through livmg in the backblock3 nowadays he was a bit out of training. The "Colt" (I never met him before, hut he is some size), was apparently very deIighted with himself on Saturday night. He has always been a good worker in the club's interests I am told, so tTiepromotion to a seat on the committee was deserved. The Wairio Club has a good officer in treasurer Matt Gaines, and the members did not waste any time in appointing him to the position again. I could not help being struck with the keen interest every memb,er app*ars to take in the welfare of a country racing club. If the same interest were taken by the members of the local club it would be running a Milbourne Cup meeting inside a couple of years.. Jack Forde hasn't any delusions about the duties of a president of a country racing club, and when telling the members that he was not taking the job of president on with with his eyes shut, he turned a nice compliment onto his predecessor, Tommy Todd. He told the members what Tommy had been in the habit of doing off his own bat at race time, and to his efforts it was very largely due the good racing track the club now possessed. "There's a friend for little children," in the members of the Wairio Jockey Club. It was a kindly and thoughtful action of the members to remember the children inmates of Lorne Farm and the Riverton Hospital at Christmas time. Action $ such as these are what makes true sportsmen popular the world over. The tnoney voted for Christmas cheer to tliese children will help to make the festive, season for them a little happier. Banker Bert Mills did not se,em at all pleased with the vote rnade by the memoers of the Wairio Jockby Club to the Birchwood Hunt Club on Saturday night. He says that the sixty-three bob will just keep the dogs one week. Well, haif a loaf is better than no bread, Bert, and there looked at one period of the debate as if they had a good chance of getting none, The appointment of W. F. Dunne as handicapp,er to the Southland Club is not looked upon with favour by local owners and trainers. One owner informed me that he considered the appointment a joke that northern owners would not stand for. Mr Dunne certainly did make a mess of the second day of the last Dunedin Christ, mas meeting, but it is by misTakes that one learns, and he is not likely to make the same errors he did on that occasion. Give the man a chance anyhow. The Wairio Jockey Club has hit upon a novel idea of popularising its meeting. Last season this little up-eountry club gave a cool thousand quid to the horses iucky enough to run first, second, and third in each race. The committee (they looked like the Peace Conference, one and all, at the hall last Saturday night), realising that it is expensive to take horses to up- country meetings now-a-days, to say nothtng of training them, added a couple of hundred to be divided amongst the "also gtarteds." This means that every horse competing at the meeting will reeeive something. The idea is new to the Dominion, and I think will at once be popular with owners and trainers. There are certainly more horses race at a meet-

ing who don't get into the money than those who do, and if it were not for the losers, the game could not be kept going. They ar.e a progressive crowd are the commitee of the Wairio Jockey Club, and their meeting deserves all the populanty it enjoys. The appointment of Major S. Rice, of Wyndham, as a mem'Ser of the itoyal Commission to inquire into and report on the applications for further totalisator permits came as a surprise to most racing men, but no one can say that he is not thoroughly qualified for the job. A very capable business man before he went to the war, he show,ed he had organisation well developed as a squadron commander, and his selection as one of two representa. tives of the South Island will certainly ineet with approval in Southland. TOTALISATOR FRACTIONS. The totalisator inspector's report recommending Bill Massey and Co. to collar the totalisator fractions which will not divide into sixpences is causing the Sports Protection League to buck. Mr Skerrett, i chairman of the Board of Control of that j almost defunct body, says that the clubs do not retain the fractions at all. Well, perhaps they don't in the actual sense of the word, but in that same sense clubs j don't retain any of their receipts. The totalisator inspector's reasons why the Government should take this further amouut, estimated at about £42,000 a I year, may not be very convincing, but neither are the reasons against- the proposal put forth by King's Counsel Skerrett. The money belongs to the people I who back horses that return them the | dividends, and as these people can't claim it I don't think they care very much who gets it, and if the clubs don't retain it i then why not let it go towards paying off somo of our beavy national debt. Bill , | Massey, P.C., is in some ne,ed of boodle, by the look of things now he will be in greater need before long, and if this additional amount is going to help him, and also help to return the totalisator to the people, by all means give it over to the Consolidated Funds. The sportmg .public now pays through the nose for its sport, and last year contributed some half million in direct taxation from the racing game. Racing clubs are doing well everywhere in the Dominion and can afford this extra amount without any risk of bankruptcy. They should rememker that the opposition to the totalisator L weakening each year, chfefly because many of those who were opposed to it realiso that the money it provides in direct taxation, besides^the revenue through the railways and post and teLegraph departments, very considerably helps to reduce their own taxation. The monish talks !