Horse racing -- Australia -- History; Race horses -- Australia -- History; Stainforth, Martin, 1866-1957
A New Zealand colt, Noctuiform, perhaps almost as good a colt in his
three-year-old days as Aurum, also travelled to the Old Country, but
went all to pieces, and was a complete failure. That was the fortune of
war, but the Dominion avenged herself when Mr. S. H. Gollan took a
steeplechaser, Moifaa, across the wide seas to Liverpool, and put down
all England, aye, and Ireland, too, over that unique and difficult
course. Yes, I assure you we can breed the best in the world here, if we
would but take the greatest pains. That is where we fail, and fail
badly. English stud management can give us a couple of stone and a
handsome beating.
We often hear men arguing on the subject of “Which was the best horse
ever bred in Australasia?”
The subject is an interesting, if a somewhat profitless one for
discussion. It is impossible to decide the point, for the horses of old
had perforce to contend with conditions which their more pampered
brethren of to-day are never called upon to meet. But I should say that
the champion laurels hover between the brows of Carbine and The Barb.
The time occupied by each in running the Cup, two miles, can scarcely be
compared. The old-timer won, as a three-year-old, carrying six stone
eleven, in three minutes and forty-three seconds. Carbine, a
five-year-old, with ten five up, finished in three minutes twenty-eight
and a quarter seconds. The pace in The Barb’s year was probably not
fully on until approaching the Abattoirs, when the winner and Exile came
away from the field and, locked together, they fought out every inch of
the last hundred yards. In Carbine’s year they hopped off with a full
head of steam on, and the last five furlongs were covered at the
tremendous speed of one minute and two seconds. But the going in The
Barb’s race, no doubt, could not be compared with what it is in our day,
although we must remember that, after all, there was only an interval of
twenty-four years between the two eras. It will be interesting to
briefly run over the careers of the rivals.
As a two-year-old The Barb only competed twice. In April Fishhook and
Budelight, two Fisherman colts belonging to Mr. H. Fisher, beat him in
The Australian Jockey Club’s Two Years’ Stakes. The Barb ran green. A
week afterwards Fishhook attempted to give the black colt a stone, at
six furlongs, in The Nursery, but was beaten easily by two lengths.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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