West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), Friday 30 July 1920, page 8


SPORTING NEWS. THE TURF,. TBS WEEK FIXTURES. kabrday.--Gooidwood B.C., Boulder R.C. Moonce Valley R.C. Moorefield R.C., S.A. Tattersall a. NOTES AND CHAT. IYearsay the stipendiary stewards coneuded the inquiry into the perrformance o KiEnuine in the Farewell Welter, run at Helena Vale on Saturday last. They decided to disqualify the jockey (A. Audas), the owner (J. Brady), and the gelding for twelve months, under rule 135ba for umproper practices.An An eight-event progrm mme doubtless, will tract a large crowd, to the Goodwood Club's meeting to-morrow. A large shelter shed has been erected on the fiat for legor patrons and extra seating accommodation for, ladies has been provided in the grandstand enclosure. The first race will start at 1.0. .In connas©tin with to-morrow's Goodwood meeting apprentices' tickets and horse aesses must be secured before 5 p.m. today. Bookmakers who. intnd boetting at' te Goodwood meeting are reminded that they sust apply for their licences before 5 p.m. oday. Mr. D. H. MeGregor.--Please call at this office for papers left by mistake yesterday.. afternoonIn In connection with the Goodwood Club's meeting the name of Monitrix was in advertently omitted from the list of acceptors for the Welter Handicap published jcsterday. She is weighted at 8.13. The following prices were on offer in Perth last nigbt in connection with she Anstralian _Hurdlo _Race:-4 t:.l1 Bright Plume or Pistolier; 6 to 1 Sandul:; 7 to 1. Sir emon; 10 to 1 Oopina; 12 to 1 Beltaie, Tullilel. Shadow Dancer, or Two Blues; 14to 1 to 50 to I others . -A mcessagefromr Melbourne last evening Stateis:--'he following scrs;hohings were notified to-day:--Melbourne Cup: .amovar and Tri~,ule..- . Caulfield Cup: Wise: Syce, Kenilford, Biplane, Black Falcon, Jugo, All Aboard, Pershore, Samovar Triboulet, Terrific, 'Thucydides, Field Tonk and Car. allulup. Toorak Handicap: Bright Night, Wise Syco, Kenilford, and Biplane Williamstown Cup: Wise Syoe. Kenilford, Jugo and Biplane." -I. D. H. Gregor, a New Zealander, is~ is a passenger by the Beltana, n* at Fremantle, called at this office yesterday and made some interesting remarks on aCingn in South Africa. An'amateur jockey nmse7f. Mr. Mc regor was for a number. of years sporting editor of the Bloemfontein "Post." a paper. which, however.- has eeaead publication. He served in the Boer war and in 'East' Africa durig" the -campaign against the Germans and is now returning to his homne' in 'New Zealand after an" absence of over twenty years. Mr. McGregor states that racing 'is booming. in Snuth Africa and at Johannesburg meet s:are conducted twice a week-on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The average 'attedsnee at the hig'fxtires is about 22i0-. The .system. of apointing stipndiary stewards which is popular in Australia has been adopted by only one olub, and in his opinion racing is -not contlled as it should be. Ownera there are great believers in toe Musket blood and Ar. McGregor believes that it would pay breeders in Australia to open up neotiations for trade on ? large scale in the stook produced here. He desaribes Pamphlet. as the "Carbine of Sou.' Africa," in poe of popularity. This performer 'he says, is a very ungainly looking .-erse standing 171, but agreat galloper, and recently he won the Durban July Handicap, a. richly endowed event run over. a mnile and a quarter. This was his second, succas in the race referred to. and on each occasion be carried .big weights. The leading trainer is J. Russell, an Australian, and his stable sheltes Pamphlet, who is owned by Mr. A. Leveastein.. Mr. McGre gor ba great adrmiration for Ruseel1, and stated that the public have such faith 'in this trainer that they are content'to back horses under, his care regardless of a lad from the stable connections. The majority of the sporting editors in South Africa are, acordin-' to Mr. McGregor, either Auetra-' lians or lw Zealanders. In support ;of the legalisation ,of the totarisator 'in Victoria, sar. William Reid, the well-knoswn racehorse owner and proprietor of' the Glen Oril stud, wrote to the Mellourne "Leader" recently as fatlows:--"t would oe a waste of timne. to go deeply irto the cost, to the public-of, tue. boo?nakler system as compared with the toa.iar; but 'the fallowing figures may serve as 'straw8 to show how the wind blows.' The registered numbers are. authe tic, the unregistered are 'of couise,. approximate :-Rgistered bookmakers, 40x; amrogistered bookmakers, say' 200, total 600; registered boonmakers' clerks, 860; unreg" tored b6okimakie' clierks. asy' 140, . total' 1,000; hangers' on, livaing an the ga~e, 'aay 4,400; total, 6,000. Pu?ting the keep and everbtrad expenses of this army of nonprod-ucers at an average of £5. per week each we get £1,560,000 per annum and it we add only 20s. per week per. hdad that this same . ,000 keen brainy .men 'might reasoonably be expected to be worth to the State if engaged in primuary and secondary production, we get another £312,000, all of which, it seems to me, omes o u t o f t eB p o c k e ts ' ~ f ' t h e p o b lic e v e r y yeur. Startling as these figures are, howe'ers they merely saratch the ear of the problem, still they closely approach an' anrual tax of 27s. 6d. per head on'every mnn, womaen and Ohild in Vioboria tDoIday. Any kind of devic oeipable-'f coping with this sta?o of afCairs should srely reoaie the most ?arnCes consideration of all the anthorities concerned. The opposition of book'rmakcrs and a few gambling pmunters, the curse of the turf, can easily be understood,

but tle oppositio o te cnuxenm Is.. o so readily, apparent. If the latter will throw off the, professional cloak for a.i few minutes and look the position in the face as sensible nmn of the world, they must surely see that one totalisator under absolute contral, that cans only operate on the raccoourse, must be infinitely less harmful to h~ananitgy than 600 walking and talking totalisators, with .their clerks, froqnenting all likely places of resort. and ready for. businrts at any hour of the night or day., The reasons the cherches give for the p?sition they take up is that legalisation of the totalisator would mean the legal recognition of gambling, but this is a belated excuse, the Gaming Act, 1906, having. made betting on the racecourse a per' fectly .lawful operation.. Their second objection is that machine betting would inere ase the evil instead of controllirg . and mnininising it. This depends upon cire~ nstances. In Now South Wales, for instanc, where bookmakers and the totalisator operate side by side, there may be reason in .'their contention, but in oounArses where the latter is the sole medium of betting on the recourso. they are entirely wrong. I have no desire even to suggest that the churches are acting otherwise than according to their lights in this matter, .but there is just a suspicion they are giving greater attention to the clean and brightly burrished appearance of the outside of the 'platter' than to the seething mass of eorruption, which it contains. In other words ,they only look at one side of the aueskson, obviously alike to the boo makers' position just described, to the fact that shop and starting price betting in Malb3aurne was never so rampant; that the public services and factories are honeycombed with agents of these abomliations; or that in almost every little country township starting price odds can be got at the pub. or the grocer or barber's shop. These Facilities for spending money, which I maintain a proper totalisator would stop, are a constant strain upon the earnings of the working man and a strer.g factor in the increased cost of living. In addition to the foregoing, scores of equally cogent reasons ould be stated why the totalisaor should becmne law with as little delay as possible, but probably enough has been said, for the present." The Randwick correspondent of the "Argus" states that Pershore who is well spoken of in .connection with the Metropolitan, is doing nicely on long strong work at. Randwick. High hopes were entertained for Persbore when ';s was a twoyear-old and although he failed this sea3on. there is no reason either on the soore of his supearancn or his breeding, why he should not succeed in the spring. He is by All Black (imp., sire of Desert Gold) frem .Perseis, by Postano (imp.) from CSirce. by Castor (imp.) from Cies' (a full sister to Treuton), by Musket' (imp.) from Prailty. by Goldsborough. In other words, he is well enough bred to do anything. In 'te middle '90's there came from England a very high-bred stallion (says a Sydney paper). He was by St. Simon. the best sire in the world, out of Dutch Oven, one of the best racing mares in the world. She was a winner of the St. Teger and some £17,000 in stakes. This horse was named Simmer. On his departure from the land of his birth, an English writer. in nrint. gave up thanks for his removal, and conrectulated the country on losing a ho-e', that could "neither gallop, trot nor walk." The old coustry, he was sure, was well rid of him. It is a bad policy to conden?u any oxcoritionaliv well-bred. horse. They have a.bad habii of rising 'e like ghosts to haunt their detractors. Simmer went to the Tocal st.nd. and was not a success at first; but later his stock came good, and he beeame one of the best sires in Australia- During his short soemzrn at Toal Simmer sired minumber and Heraeih. Kinoumbet is the sire of Kinlerk

who was a topnotch hurdler; and Heraele is the sire of Iolaus. Heracles is also the sire of Dunaces, a big winner over hurdles. In the records of our two great longdistanoe handicaps the Melbourne and Sydney Caups (writes "Milroy" in 'tho "Sydney Mail") it is shown that in twenty years seven winners of the Melbourne Cup and nine winners of the Sydney Cup were by "colonial" horses, and for the same period we have six winners of the Metropolitan and seven winners of the, Caulfield Cup. These are the four greatest. handicaps im Australia, and the figures given' prove the colonial sire is quite able to holdihis own against allcomers if he gets the same chances. For these figures I have not gone farther back than" thn rcsl beginning bf importation on a lavish scale. During the previous twenty years, 12 winners of the Melbourne Cup were got by "colonials' as were 16 winners of the Sydney Cup. But in the earlier days competition among breeders for sale was not so keen as now and experience -has shown them there is a greater preference for yearlings by' Eniglish horses, and they, like sensible men, supply the goods required. . A few odd wealthy men, like the late Hion.; James White, W. A. Long. J. V. Smith. "W. R. Watson and the present John McDonald, who bred horses mostly for their own use, met with wonderful success with select colonial horses, as James Wilson, Junior, of Victoria, did with Bobadil. Mr. White bred some wonderful horses by Chester, and a few good winners by Martini-Henry. What Mr. Long did with Grand Flaneur forms a big part of the racing history of Australia. Grand Flaneur sired the Melbourne Cup winners Bravo and Patron. Mr. Smith used two such .colonial horses as Malua and Wallace. Malun got a fine Melbourne .Cup winner in Malvolio and Wall-ce sired two Melbourne Cup winners. Mr. Wilson's best bower when he first went to St. Albans was Trenton. who got -two Melbourne Cup winners, and his blood appears in the dams of six others. Our Brisbane correspondent telegraphed Itst night:--A post-mortem examination was held- to-day by the Government Veterinary Surgeon of the body of the racehorse Boy Syce, and the content, of the stomach were ihslequcntly sent to the Government Analyst. From information ree ived tonight there seenms to be little doubt that the horse was poisoned. The trainer is at a less to understand how the colt could have ecten anything harmful. The owner (Mr. M. Ryan) intends making every effort to solve the mystery, and says he will in the next day or two -make public the Government Analyst;' report. Meantime, the matter has been taken' in hand by the Police Department. "J.M."--The Australian high jumping record is.held. by Sundown, who cleared 7ft 9in on the Albury Show Ground on Sep'tenber 11, last year. "Interested."-T. Corrigan died as a result of a fall while ridine Waiter in the Caulfield Grand National Steeplechase on August 11, .1894.