SPORTING.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 591, 7 April 1891, Page 3

SPORTING.

GENERAL ITEMS. Messrs Currie and Hogan’s Caitiff has been handicapped at list 51b for the Wellington Hurdle Race. It is more than likely that he will be an absentee. The winning payments in connection with the recent Auckland Autumn Meeting amount to £1,647 6s. The principal sums are—Mr Bradley, £428; Mr S. H. Gollan, £304; Mr T. Morrin, £256 10s; Major George, £133. Hilda has run her last race, and will in future be relegated to stud duties at Wellington Park. There was the unusual event cf a walk over in the Flying Handicap at the recond day of the recent Auckland meeting. The Baron monopolised the race. Carbine carried Ost 31b in the All Aged Stakes when he was put down by Marvel, and not Ost 11b as appeared in our sporting telegrams on Saturday morning last. Marvel's impost was Ost, he being a gelding. There was a miserable attendance at the second day of the Ca'erbury meeting, but £6,487 was put through the totalisator. In the two days the total was £4,020 in excess of last year's meeting. It may not be generally known that The Agent, winner of the Grand National Steeplechase and numerous other steeplechases and hurdle races in New Zealand, is alive, and still owned by Patsy Butler. At the Canterbury races, in the Sockburn and Consolation Handicaps, Moraine got left at the post, and in the Easter Handicap Hazel had a like experience. Some of the other starts are described as being of a bad and straggling nature. At various times, and at various places in Australasia, the totalisator has paid some extraordinary big dividends, but at the Nice winter steeplechase meeting one winner, Ambassadrice, who started at 40 to 1, paid a dividend at the rate of 2652 toll The Victoria Racing Club have already arranged the programme for next season The Melbourne Cup remains at £lO.OOO The Australian Cup is raised from £l,OOO to £1,500, but £3OO will go to the second, and £l5O to the third horse, out of the (take. Ben gon, the disappointing son of Argus Scandal and Lady Ellen, who wae thought to be good enough to win each of the last two Melbourne Cups, but failed to run respectably in either, turned up a winner in the St Kilda Cnp of the V.A.T.C. Meeting run the other day. The committee of the H. B. Jockey Club met on Friday, when it was decided to ask Mr Powell, of Wanganui, on what terms he would act as starter for the Club. Over the old totalisator building a stewards’ stand is to be constructed. The accounts of the autumn meeting showed a profit of £460. At Waipukurau Mr Carroll’S Aorere, with O'Shannessy up, only got beaten by a neck in the hack hurdles, which was won by Somnambulist. Macandrew's Claude, with Lawton up, won the Hack Flat by a neck from Couranto, paying an £8 17s dividend. At Woodville Aorere won the Maiden Hurdles, (nd came second in the Handicap Hurdles. Bit of Bine ran a game little horse in the Auckland Steeplechase, but when leading by two lengths, the last time round, baulked at the brush fence, and ran off—something quite unexpected from the roan. It is freely admitted on all sides that but for this mitake be must have won, as he was full of going. The little horse was well backed on the machine, and had he won would only have paid his backers a dividend of £2 The horse was well ridden by Bob Marshall. , Although Bit cf Blue did not win the Auck land Steeplechase, Gisborne produced the winner after all in the erstwhile Gisbornebred horse Ingorangi. The horse is by old - Bothwell, and was owned and raced in this district by Mr Te Kani Pere, but he couldn’t Win a back hurdle race here.

* MARVELLOUS MARVEL. Viewed in the light of Marvel’s easy victory in the now historical All eged Stakes at Bandwick, the following allusion by a Melbourne correspondent to Marvel’s “ exposure " in the Autumn Handicap is especially interesting:—“ And then came the ' fun of the fair.' Oh, but it was extremely delicious ! .(Iter playing dinkiedoodledum with the long. Suffering public for months and months the Cunning Push got left at last with their marvellous Marvel. And old George Flat was such a very, very fly man. too ! No one was to know when Marvel was meant eave a select few ! He wasn’t going to be forestalled—not he! He was far too clever for that ! Poor dupe 1 All the the time he was being dangled and dangled to the fall bent of his own sweet will; and when at last the Right People said • Go I’ be himself wasn't one of ths select few. It was the very best worked coup I ever heard of. Before the very eyes of the touts morning after morning Marvel was putting in mile and a-balf and mile and three-quarter gallops at the very soundest pace, and yet nobody aver fathomed what was open and palpable bn the face of it 1 Clever Jimmy Monaghan ! What with your Penance, your Marvel, and your Wilga at 100's to 5 you must have had a high old time of it I But how did George Flat bite I He was smoking a cigar near the judge's box, and as he saw Marvel ambling in front of his field he smiled contemptuously at the loud offers of ‘ 100 to 2 Marvel 1’ that S gated hie ears from the bookies who knew e leader was only a sprinter, and who could plainly see that if business was meant be wouldn't be making a waiting race in front. Bat when the tail broke, and after Enuo and Wycombe had tried in vain to approach the galloping machine who had never varied throughout rhe tryst from the same old 13s. to the furlong, the big cigar in George Fist’s mouth was chewed up $0 smithereens. Another Sydney gentleman —a member cf Parliament, too—who vouchsafed the information that he and George Flat owned Marvel between them, was furious; albeit ha stated that at the last moment Tluv (whoever They were) had informed him they had taken £4OOO to £4OO about it for him. Tor my own part I couldn’t exactly see what he had to yelp at over the affair, and .1 (very considerately) offered to take the trifle off his bands if it incommoded him in any way But this only added to his wrath, ‘ What the (Satanic majesty's) a paltry £4OOO for such a horse as that ! ’ he roared; * a horse that any time you liked to ask him

con'd ran you a mile and a-half in 2m »4sf’_ At the which Yours Truly sub- | ;ided into hie lace-ups and wended his way pensively to the sacred precincts of the press box, meditating upon the mutability of all things earthly, and of George Flat's high hopes and aspirations in particular. On arriving at the sanctum sanctorum I was informed They—the same old mysterious they — accounted for the fluke (!) by stating that Marvel bolted—a statement I have since seen reproduced in one or two papers. You can take from me, he was never once fully extended throughout the race, and ran at the even gait of 13s to the furlong from start to finish, upsetting a ‘beautiful plant’ Pat Kelly had with Wycombe (who was timed to run the distance —a mile and five furlopga—in 2m 50a) by three lengths,