Los Angeles herald., 1892-12-25

lish mares at the Rancho del Paso, in
charge of John Mackey. In Marten-
hurst he has the finest stallion yet
brought to this state-that is accessible
to the general public. Sir Modred,
Maxim and Darebin are his only equals,
and they are private sires. Marten-
hurst's best performance was when he
ran third to the great Common (sold for
$75, ,OO0l for the derby of 1891. Third
to great performer like Com
mon was equal to being second to
st. Blaize, Rayon dor or SuIefoot,
and equal to beating spunk" horse
like Sir Bevis, Amato or Atilla, all of
whom won that classic event, the good
Lord only knows how. Combining as
he does the blood that produced such
cracks as Wenlock, Petrarch, Hawthorn
den, Jeanette, Apology, Kisber and
The Miner, l cannot expect otherwise
than good results from him.
SIS
The man who writes over the sigma
ture of Augur says great many things
in which | cannot concur, especially
when he says that Australia never i'm
ported any first class blood from Eng
land" Leave out Glencoe and Lean
ington, and they have imported 25 better
bred stations than ever saw the Ameri-
can shore loom up ahead of awest-bound
ship. But he strikes key note when
he says that our scale of weights is too
light, and our handicaps adjusted with
out the slightest approach to good
Judgment. Moreover, he verifes his
statement with table of the principal
handicaps, in which he shows that out
Of 81 races of this type 10 have been
won by the top-weight starting horse or
one that was within two pounds OF him,
and that the fields were not properly
brought together.
This is the fault of our American sys-
tenn of handicapping. For our spring
events we take the most brilliant per-
former OF the year previous and put the
top weight on him, handicappiDg down
the previous year are "chucked in"
with feathers on their backs.
The Australian system is just the re-
verse. They fix 80 pounds as their bot
tom weight and handicap upward from
that. In 1884 there were 16S nomina-
tions for the Melbourne cup, with Com
mUllOu, HthIb, loo puuuue, hhiud, y
years, 1876, and Sir Modred. 5 years, $50
pounds. The latter horse was scratched.
Malua won in 5 :3034 for the two miles,
beating Commotion neck, while Plaus-
ible, an aged gelding with 1l5 pounds
up, was in third place and proved the
accuracy OF Mr.. Barnard's work az q
Handicapped. Twenty-six horses ran,
come of them carrying as low as 81
pounds, and finishing nowhere.
x*x
Some of the Australian performances
of recent date eeem almost incredible to
an American race goer. For instance,
there was Dreadnaught's 3.year-old vic
tory in the Australian cup of 1890, "a
miles in $685., carrying 118 pounds.
and beating Melos, 4 years, 126 pounds,
and Sir William, years., LA pounds.
Dreadnaught carried three pounds more
than did Springbok and Preakness in
the memorable dead heat for the Sara
toga cup of 1875, the former being 5
years and the latter an aged horse. Car
bine won the Melbourne cup of 1890, 5
years, with 145 pounds up and covered
the course in 3 :2Sl4, the worlds record
for that distance in race against
horses. Last year Malvolio, years, 119
pounds (and son of old Malua, by tho
way). won the Melbourne cup, two miles
in :29l4. Let our handicappers adopt
the Australian system of imposing
weight and we snall have closer finishes,
even if the top weights do win.
HIDAUGo