view raw text
GOOD HORSES LACKING IN AUSTRALIA. Aside from huge attendances and large profits, it cannot be said that- the spring campaign has been a great success this year, says an Australian exchange. "There was never the chance of such a race as Abercorn, Melos and Carbine provided for the Melbourne Stakes in 1SS0, because there are no horses of that class about. Last spring the best old horses we could boast for the welght-for-age I races after Duke Foote retired, were Eudorus not even a lirst-class handieapper in England, Piastre and Uncle Sam. This year the position was much worse. Duke Foote. Eudorus, Piastre, Lady Medallist, Aurofodina, Jolly Reggar and The Parisian were all missing from the all-aged classes, while Wola-wa. Cider, Moe and Perdita, the best three-year-olds of last season, were also on the shelf. Uncle Sam was left, but he was nothing like the Uncle Sam of last spring. Duke Foote beat the three-year-olds pointless at weight for age in Sydney, but Radnor, Andelosla and Reragoon tilled the places in the C. R. Fisher Plate. The only old horses to turn out against them were Uncle Sam, not in form, and Danaus, which has no pretensions to weight-for-age form. What a picnic a Wakeful or a Trafalgar would have liad in welght-for-age company last week! However, something lias to win, and, judging by attendances, the public do not trouble as to whether the horses running are good or bad. "We certainly did see a llyer in the two-year-old Traquctte. She is probably the best filly of her age we have ever seen. She is by an English roarer, gifted with tremendous speed himself. Wo have been inundated with English imoortatlons in the last few years. We do not get Flshermaus or Muskets because with prices as they are their class arc not within the reach of Australians. Those we get produce pace; but their stock do not last to become welght-for-age horses. Perhaps they will not stand all the racing expected of them in Australia, but a few years back there were plenty of good horses that could go through a meeting. Rreeders for sale aim at producing the sort of article that will come early and win rich two-year-old races. Buyers are contented. The private breeders who can afford to ignore the market will have to go in for the hardy staying sort that Mr. James White used to rear in the great days of the blue and white. As galloping machines the present-day horses may make better time than the old type not that any of them, with all the improvements in the tracks can do much better than Carbine did with 145 pounds in the Melbourne Cup but as wcight-for-age specimens those which ran at Flemington lately were about the worst lot we have seen at a cup meeting, and they were not much better the year before. Duke Foote, according to his owner, is not nearly the equal of Prince Foote. and Duke Foote was a long way the best horse at Randwick."