Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931), Tuesday 23 April 1929, page 22


THE WORLD OF SPORT,

CLASSIC RACES— THE FfNAL TEST MATCH— SHORTER BOXING CONTESTS.

Trom Our Special Correspondent.

T.cr.dan. March 14.

Soivc of Ihc trainers ol horses at j Ncwir.r.rkei arc l'ccv begimiing to : mt'.o rio'vvn c:i their classic aspirs.n:s. ^ccordins1 to pM accounts P. Bu-tti's, wiio I~as charge ol Lord Derby's j hci'frs. is cicvotiug lime and atteiuio:i i ;o 3o^Yvon h, a colt thai is Jikeiy to i plr.v spiiio pan in tlic race lor tiio j j'v.-o TiiousKnrl Guinea.' at 'he L-c- ?

iiiii:i!iit, oi M;!y. In .s-j j.a;' as IS' bcc'i c.r iorr.i i:.- rnnccrnccl. Ijor.T.o:'lii is quii? a a?plieib!o qiir.lit;.'. lor !)' i nd c.'.ly on; outnii al (v.'o ?7---ars, and iiir'.-. could not sec Hie v.ay ?.Ir. Jin^s went. Aitcr tlicflat racing season had end^d Bosv.orth ms put i'l rt trial gailop Tvitii Vosemite n'id others, and acquitted himself well. K seme of the other three-vja;' ?:?*.'?? licm Star.ley House, such a;. Ilimicrs' Mocc, Fc:'agr. and Drift i'un v.'ell in their eariy wisEgements. I i'ldll fiz up and rske notice ever Bos«rovt:i -v]ie:i lie make.' his classic effort. Provincial stables are not particularly optimistic about th3 classic races at. this moment. I noticed that the Aga Khan has something cheery to say about the progress of his colt, Costaki Pasha. whereupon the tiainer cf the horse went ons bst:-?r. ! arid remarked that, so far as he was : conceiTiP.1 he had r-o idea hov.' pis i

chgrpes hed pro2re?sed during the vinter, because they had not had a single gallop. When promineiit owners and trainers are divided m their opinions in such a wav as this we can appreciate tfce difficulty of trying: to guess. H. S. Persse. of Stcckbrid^e, does not usually hurry his second season horses, and for that reason it is futile to speak of the prc£rre33 of Mr. .Tinks and Reeds- I mouth— a couple cf nice co'.ts assured j of public pr.trcrase whenever tl:ey run. J. Watson trains a likelv sort of colt in Reflector, for Mr. de Rothschild, and I shall always remember the way Reflector breasted the final rise at Ascot when he outran the i French raider. La Fayette. \ A CSasstc Hope. i The form of Reflector is an open book, and these who think he may develop into a front-ranker as a three-year-old may not be wide of t.V-e mark. At all events the progress he has made in the recess is common knowledge at Newmarket, and it is also considered certain that his trainer ?Rill win some of the earliest two-year-old races in March and April. Lord Woolavington's colt, Rattlin* the Reefer, who is in the hands of V. Gilpin, has done well of late, and will be a popular fancv for the Two Thou&anrl. That fast fiUy. Arabella. '

v.-ho is owned by Colonel Loder, and trained by Gilpin. appears not to h2ve pleased the critics. As a matter of fact the classic situation so far as the fillies are concerned looks surprising bright for Lord Ellesmere's Tiffin, who. one is pleased to learn, is doing splendidly. It is practically fixed that she shall have an outine in public prior to the On° Thousand Guineas. Of Mr. Sol Joel's threeyear-olds. I hear best reports about Kopi ar.d Mcdder. though none in the stable is rated with classic claims. There will be a general quickening cf interest and a rapid sharpening up of thp horses now that racing is in fall swin^ again, and before lori-r we ou.-jb.t to be able to talk about the future with some prospect of benefit. Leyland's Trinju^h. Last summer, when the England cricketers xrere being chosen for the Australian tour, an old player remarked: — 'If I were to be captain, I should like to have a lot of Yorkshiremen round me. and I should feel that they would never let me down.' They are undoubtedly wonderful cricketers, and they are u^upJIv at their best in the big match. Though they may lack polish, and the genius' of the batsmen who fascinate by the brilliance of their

stroke play, they get the runs, and the greater ths need for them the more likely they are to succeed. The last Yorkshireman to make Test match history is Maurice Leyland. w-ho. playing for the first time against the Australians, scored a suuerto century, and did so much to give England a winning chance in the fifth and final Test of i the tour. Leyland. who is twentyeight years of age. is a left-hand batsman and bowler, and a fieldsman who is good in any position. The son of the groundsman of the county ground at Harrogate, he was brought up from his boyhood days with the intention that be should become a professional cricketer. His father was his coach, and though he did not develop rapidly it was always apparent that Re had a marked natural aptitude for the game. His prbgress really started as soon as he entered the Yorkshire second eleven, and came under George Hirst, the county coach. Since the death of Roy Kilner. greater calls have been made on his bowling, and last season he not. onlv scored over 1.800 runs, with

an average of 50. but took over a hundred wickets. Indeed, he became one of the best all-round men in the game, and was obviously an England player But he only got his chance to play in the Test match at Melbourne owing to ; the injury to Sutcliffe and the illness of A. P. F. Chapman. His was a great triumph, and this summer, when the j South Africans are here, there is little doubt that he will be one of the first players thought of for the England side. Boxing and Boxers. On Monday night at the National Sporting Club (writes Eugene Com), Harrv Cerbett will defend the Lonsdale featherweight belt against Johnny Cuthbert, from whom he took the trophy, and the championship that goes wit? it twelve months ago. It is a fight that will break new ground. It will be over fifteen instead of twenty rounds, which distance is to be the limit of contests for titles in the future. While like most old campaigners, I have a fondness for the old-fashioneo, I have to confess that I have long been decided that 20 rounds bouts were too long Also, that they imposed a handi

cap upon enterprise, and rnvr been largely responsib'.e for the. dearth ct lighters in the real sense of ;hc i«:rm. In my callow days, lights to n finish were something of a tashion. and ii would then have been unthinkable to cut dcv.'ii a championship to less than twenty rounds, and I daresay, there arrthosc who sti'.l have it that 'the Les: of :- fighter should be endurance. But. sUhough I am not oi the kind who vonlci live in the past. I am bound to say that we have not th? men hot.- ;ha; we had the:-,. Changes . in (he rinp. and all that hinges on it. have been enoi-'-nous as in other affairs of life. We have seen that the American?, bv favoring shorter contests, have produced n type of fighter, who, though not always a inp.stcr of skill, has by his aggression me his unswerving belief in tlic punch ^?epr.ie supreme. I would not rate tiic boxing sTxxrfc of Britain as beinfr exceptionally high, bin it is not really the puny thing that it is represented to b?. If you will apply a discerning mind to the ciass of present-dav boxers, I think you will agree that we have many very clever exponents of the art. and as models of orthodoxy they will pass rmister with these of other countries But where they have failed, and why they v.-zll lag behind in battles for world's titles, is by reason of their inability to give finality to their work. Thev'sre

engaging but not practical. You could count those with a proved knock-cut punch almost on one hand. The Americans insist that a man shall go all out to fight without compromise xrom the sound of the gong, and it is obvious that when a man is strong and iUll of pep, then is the time when he may give as well as take punishment. It has long been apparent that our fellow.-, have gone into the ring to hold their heaviest battalions in reserve, until they have so fiddled and fooled the other iellow as to make him tired and weary ; It has been enough, having once got 'a lead on points, to hold to that lead and to risk little or nothing. The result— the inevitable result— has been that one round has been painfully like the other. There is not the least doubt in my mind that the secret of much of the deariness whicn we, who make a regular habit of sitting at the ringside have suffered, is ine long-winded bouts; and also it is largely the explanation why the Continental boxers, who are given to pledcmg their all on the punch, have won so many notaljie triumphs. I remember well going to see Carpentier in training at Stanmore for his first fight with Beckett, and asking him whether he had decided upon any plan of campaign. 'Yes,' repUed Carpentier, 'it is that so soon as the beU goes I shall try for a knock-out. No fighter is likely to attain front-rank if he goes into the rag with a fixed determination to wait for his Chances. Hi' must, takp r.hnnrpi;

and he is better able to do so when he is tingling with life and strength. If I find Beckett is clever I shall seek to be clever also; but he has got to convince me that he is clever. So I shall go right up to him, and try to put him on the floor. If he escapes my right hand, an-l counters me with a heavy blow I shall have the certainty that I shall be the better able to withstand the shock than I would be if he caught me in the tenth round, say. That is common-sense, and triumphs P.re won by the exercise of comrnensense. I have never played for safety in the sense of being studiously cautious in all my fighting life. I am all for trying for quick finishes. My motto is to fight with all you have, wha^t time you are freshest, an-i it stands to reason that you are freshest and strongest in the earliest stages of a fight.' A Question of Punch. I am hoping, since Corbett and Cuthbert are to go to war over a shorter championship course than that which has for so long been the recognised distance, that they will invest their contest with -more color than they gave to that in which thev engaged a year ago. I should say that ordinarily Cuthbert is more inclined to fighting tnan the mere making cf points than Corbett, but I have an idea that, when so disposed, Corbett can employ a punch as heavy as any of present-day feather-weights. I have known him to pull out a right hand calculated to knock out any boxer of his division. Were I certain that he had the quality of consistency, I should describe Corbett as a feather-weight of high degree. I have seen him box and fight like a real— a true— champion. Ii have also seen him when he has been merely moderate, and have doubted whether he would realise all the expectations of his boyhood days. Cuthbert is a most conscientious little Iellow, and I have the assurance, from those who should know, that he is fighting as well now as at any other period of his career. I trust that the fight will be entirely worthy of the occasion— a real rousing battle at headquarters is long overdue. Unless I am mistaken, there will be precious little in it at the finish, though those of a speculative turn of mind will be ready and pleased to gamble on the chances of the champion. _

Although the manager ol Ijen narvey has apparently made the way to a match between his prodigy and Alec Ireland easy, nothing definite has been decided at the moment of writing. I cannot but suppose, however, that it will not be very long now before we see them in the ring, if only more completely to justifv the sending of an invitation to Jack 'Kearns to bring Mickey Walker over to defend the middle-weight title. But there is the promise of a round of really good and important fights during the month. Johnny Hill, if he beats Ernie Jarvis, who has yet to do himself justice in this country, will probably be matched against Emile Pladner as a matter of course. I do not credit the story that the Frenchman has only a mind for Fidel La Earba. whom you know, of course, is a bantam, and, besides, it must | not be forgotten that Pladner hns not beaten Hill at the strict flyweight limit. We are all very keen to see the little Scot show what he can ^o when perfectly trained. And there will surely be a tremendous crowd to witness the return of Teddy Baldock. ? ^^