#### Damn, I didn't notice. Worse on the words front —
stumped, I left my Kropotkin crossword lying about with some five or
six answers filled in . . . and my wife picked it up and managed six or
seven herself. I must be slipping.
More important things . . . I'd like to see the Auckland Cup
dropped altogether. Two-mile all-aged handicaps are a nineteenth century
invention that served racing well in this part of the world for a good hundred
years or so but have surely had their day. And for NZ to run three of them is
ridiculous. Each of the mainland Australian states has just the one and I'm
fairly sure that only Victoria has it as their centrepiece. Let
Wellington have that feature in this country.
I'm ambivalent about the Derby move. There's real skill
required of a trainer to have a three-year-old ready to run 2400m in late
December. Running the race in March will allow more lead-up racing and
will probably result in more pronounced favourites and more of them winning .
. . although I suppose there hasn't been a more pronounced favourite than
Cheval De Troy for many a year.
Good to see the Great Northerns moved. The chase has been
dropping off in quality alarmingly over the past decade or so.
As for the housing . . . what are they
thinking?
Gil
[The original message turned up on my computer with my bit missing . . .
this is how it's supposed to look.]
