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"BATTLERS " OPPORTUNITIES NARROWING. In New Zealand this season the Canterbury Jockey Club Christchurch is giving S1.S00 for ten days racing and the Auckland Racing Club 7S,700 for eleven, while other clubs have also considerably increased their prize money. There is also a .tendency on the part of the principal bodies to indulge in weight-for-age racing to a greater extent than in the past, and the indications are that ere long sev oral of the minor clubs will pay this branch of the sport some attention. Chatting about this the other dav, a New Zealand trainer remarked: :The eventual result of this will be the elimination of the battling owner in New Zealand. Since so manv prominent New Zealand racing men have gone in "for breeding their own horses, the battlers opportunities of buying something which might prove first-class are limited. Naturally each breeder re serves what he believes to be the best of bis young sters, and therefore the small man needs to be remarkably lucky to acquire anything likely to be sufliclentlv good to run in the set weight races. Consequently- he has, in many cases, to- look to the country meetings to make a living. Hitherto, none of the big owners have bothered about these, but when more include a weight-for-age race or a big race for juveniles in their programs, they will attract a better class of horses, as the man who is sending something along for these events is pretty sure to be also represented by a runner in tho handicaps. This means that the battler will, in the long run. find conditions so much against him that he will become as nearly as possible extinct in New Zealand. It seems to me that in time, racing in the Dominion will approach the English standard in respect of being almost confined to moneyed men."
