SPORT

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 28, 23 December 1938, Page 16

SPORT

by

S.V.

McEwen

The best thing | can wish readers of this page next to a healthy appetite and a strong digestion to steer them through next Sunday's gastronomic activities, is fine weather to permit everyone to enjoy the round of sport which is listed for the Christmas week-end. There are fun and games for all who seek to spend part of the festive season out of doors.

JHE sporting event of major importance, and which will eommand the interest of the majority, even though many of them will not be able to attend, will be the running of the Auckland Cup, which is the vichest flat race handicap for thoroughbred horses in New Zealand. The Auckland Cup, which is run on Boxing Day each year at the beautiful Ellerslie racecourse, was founded 64 years ago and it has provided New Zealand’s Turf history with some of its brightest ehapters. Two horses, Arie! and Nelson, won it three times-Ariel in 1876, 1878 and 1879, and Nelson in 1885, 1886 and 1887, Blue Jacket won in 1899 and 4900; All Red in 1908 and 1909; Te Kara in 1923 (dead-heat with Muraahi) and outright in 1924; and more recently Cuddle won in 4935 and 1936, establishing a time yecord in the first year and breaking it the following year. The weight-carrying record stands to the credit of Nelson who had 9.12 on the occasion of his third consecutive victory in 1888.

No Favourite The turf writers, whose job it is to offer you guidance on these big racing events, have not yet made up their minds what will win next week’s Auckland Cup. Their hesitancy’ to declare themselves is due, I think, to the open character of the race. My preference is for Wotan, who won the Melbourne Cup in 1936, although his racing record since performing that unexpected feat at Flemington is one that nobody could enthuse about. He has won two races only in the meantime, and both of them en the Feilding course, but quite recently he showed us that he is In the right physical condition and we know him to be a true gtayer because he has won at the Auckland Cup distance (two miles) and in doing so established a New Zealand and Australian time record for the distance. All other things being equal, handicap racing is mainly a question of weight. Other matters have an important influence such as the state of the track, the ability of the rider, and the luck of the Funning which, in other words, means avoidance of interference from tiring horses and incompetent riders. In my opinion Wotan has come down sufficiently in the weights now to make him a gilt-edged proposition in the Auckland Cup if he chooses to run generously. = ~~ : Unfortunately, horses don’t al‘ways warn us when they are going to get the sulks on race-day. Many of them are moody beasts and their failure to run up to anticipated form makes racing largely a matter of glorious uncertainty. Perhaps that is all to the good, for, if everything went according to

schedule in horse-racing, there would be too many winners and not sufficient losers. A Brilliant Filly INKED with the Auckland Cup on Boxing Day is the Railway Handicap, a valuable event, run over six furlongs, and if you are fortunate enough to select the winner of this race as well as that of the Auckland Cup your bookmaker (if you know one) will arrange to pay your next few instalments on the ear. The Railway Handicap was not established until 1890 and its records are studded with the names of many of the Dominion’s most brilliant sprinters. My fancy for this race is the three-year-old filly Disdain who has been very favourably handicapped at 7.4. Disdain ran only twice last season as a_ two-year-old, winning each time, and although she never

met Defaulter, who was the champion juvenile last term, there were plenty of trainers at Riccarton, where both youngsters were stabled, who were quite prepared to back Disdain to beat the colt, When Disdain won her initial race, the Canterbury Jockey Club’s handicapper was. so impressed that he raised her 21 pounds for. the second day-a most unusual rise-and she won just as easily. Disdain won a set-weight hack race at the New Zealand Cup meeting when not in the right cons dition, but failed as a stayer in the pars Stckes over a mile and @& alf. Recently she changed stables and her new trainer may not have had her long enough to harden her up to the neces; . sary muscular condition, but~ she is such a brilliant begin- / ner, and so speedy, that she * may not need to be thoroughly tuned up. A Riccarton trainer who hag had a long experience and whose opinions I value greatly because he has watched the development of ali the great horses at’ Riccarene ee ee, ee ee ee et ee ce ee, ee, em, ee el

ton for the last 40 years, declares that Disdain is the second best sprinter he has seen raised in that locality. I accept his say-so thai if Disdain regains touch with her two-year-old form next Monday she will be a good thing for the Railway. Hoodoo A Myth REFEREN CE earlier on this page to Wotan and his Auckland Cup chance reminds us that Melbourne Cup winners who maintain their form are in the minority. So many have failed to do so, that a totally unwarranted hoodoo has grown up around the winning of the Melbourne Cup. ‘ Probably the cause of the subsequent failures was due to Cup winners being too harshly penalised to permit of further wins in the handicap class, and they did not measure up to weight-for-age class. Carbine, who won the Melbourne Cup in 1890 with 10.5 from a ree cord-sized field, did not find any trouble in going to further successes. He ran in seven more races and won six of them. Coming a little nearer home, Nightmarch, the last New Zealandowned Melbourne Cup winner until Wotan scored, returned home to win the New Zealand Cup with 9.6, the maximum weight then allowed under the conditions of the race. This was a feat which no horse had accomplished for half a century. The previous New Zealand. owned Melbourne Cup winner was Sasanof, winner at Flemington in 1916. Two seasons later he, too, won the New Zealand Cup.