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AUSTRALASIAN RACING GOSSIP. During the recently-closed season there was racing on 13S days in the Melbourne metropolitan area, as against 152 the previous season. This season the total will lie further reduced, and. in consequence, several Melbourne owners and trainers are already giving Sydney thought as a new resting-place. The totalizator turnover for the three days of the recent Wellington, N. meeting was !. 745. the Mini of hB11,400 being put through on the past race a "hack" handicap alone. There were twenty-four races, and of these only three were won by first, favorites, while the winners included a couple of rank outsiders. The New Zealand Racing Conference lias decided that in the future apprentices riding in the Dominion arc to retain their allowance of five pounds in selling races and handicaps of the net value of not more than 00 to the winner until they have won fifteen races. Previously the allowance ceased when au apprentice rode five winners. It is understood that the Australian Jockey Club did not issue any fresh licences to unmarried bookmakers or clerks of military age and fit for active service. Nor were any of those bookmakers already licensed, and considered capable of "doing their bit" for the country, promoted from the flat "to Leger, or Leger to paddock Sydney Referee. In the New Zealand parliament about a fortnight ago. a member asked whether the government would pass legislation taking all profits made by racing clubs during the war. The prime minister replied that as most of the racing clubs in New Zealand were giving all their profits to patriotic funds there was no intention on the part of the government to legislate in the direction indicated. At the recent New Zealand Racing Conference a proposal carried was one by the president Sir George Clifford, that no club should give less than 50 for races; that any club holding more than three meetings a year should have an average of at least ,500 per diem for races; clubs holding three meetings a year, a daily average of at least ,000 and for two meetings an average of at least ,000 per diem. The object of tiiese alterations, it. was stated, was to secure adequate prize money at meetings at which trotting races Mere included. The Australian Jockey Clubs list of licenses for 1015-17 made its appearance, and though, as usual, there were rumors as to who were likely to be missing, they were again ill-founded. I have heard that some jockeys were questioned as to their betting proclivities, and I suppose that, as usual, so far from doing any betting they scarcely knew what a bookmaker was. The prevention of betting by jockeys may be excellent in theory, but it is about as practicable as attempting to keep lucks from water. Theyll get there somehow. In all 52 jockeys have been licensed Pilot in Sydney Referee. At tin; New Zealand Racing Conference the proposal to increase the minimum weight from 01 pounds to OS pounds was defeated by 24 votes to 0. In the course of the debate on the motion it was pointedout that, any club could put on races with a OS-pound minimum, a position preferable to a hard-and-fast rule- on that point. Although it is recognized that under the present system of licensing trainers and jockeys local influence plays a prominent part in New Zealand, the position is to remain the same, the majority in its favor being sufficient to carry the proposal that the conference should do the licensing.
