THE CHINA MAIL TUESDAY, JULY 19, 1960,
J. W. M. THOMPSON DISCOVERS A NEGLECTED RACING
RACING GAME DID YOU KNOW THIS
GOES ON IN ENGLAND?
Two dates suggested for
1964 Games
Tokyo, July 18,
The Tokyo Olymple Organis Ing Committee decided to sub- mit two sole of alternate dates for the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo to the International Olymple Committee when the JOC meets In Rome next month, a report said wday.
said
England has not exactly neglected the art of get-
ting one horse to cover a distance faster than other horses, but all the same one branch of the art has sunk into mysterious eclipse. This is the sport of harness-racing, more often known as trotting.
The odd thing is that in practically every other country where the racing of horses flourishes, trotting is reaching dizzy new heights of po pularity.
In America, on the Conti- neat, in Australia and in Zealand, trotting booms. Yet in England il languishes..
M-
Esher farmer who has been hot New for trotting ever since he saw
in Australia 35 years ago.
"It was
no riore successful there at that time than it is in England now," he tells “but it began to grow popular, sen afterwards. Then they staged it under floodlights and It became an enormous success,"
Still, one of the tiny The newspaper Asahi
mile of the English trotting the committee at its 10th season was reached last week general meeting today, dis- the Derby Triaj Stakes meeting, cussing Games plans, selected which was held at Welwyn's May 23-June 7 and May 30-new sports stadium on July 14. June 14.
The committee
teels that either of the two dates are ideal for a sports event, the Asahi said. The third Asian Games, which was held on May 24- Jame 1, was a success primarily
becaux of the weather-AP.
Sports Diary
TO-DAY
Bawtr
Colony Ladies' Open
Matches at
PRC, HEFC,
KCC 530 pan.
Palra: KBGC.
Cotony Men'I Open Singles: Matches at FRC, Recreio HKFC, ICC. IRC, KCC KBGC KDC 530 p.m.
Meeling
JIKASA Executive Committee
meeting at
S.C.M. Pust
Room. 5.30 p.m.
HKFA Council meetin
Road...
TO-MORROW Swlowing
Girl Guides swimming
Board
Sports
+
gala
EYMCA Pool, 5230 p.m.
Bowi Gutierrez Shield Intemational China (HKFC), match: Malaya v Philippines Y Scotland (KBGC). Australia v Wales (HKTC), Hong- kong v England (KBGC), 330 p.m.
Several thousand people saw what the sport had to offer there, many of them for first time.
the
It is a sad sign of trosting's decline that today probably few people know exactly what it is. For the uninstructed majority it may be explained as a sort of domesticated chariot race.
instead of A Jockey cich horse has a driver, sitting in a light (or more exactly on) two-wheeled trap. These, traps are called sulicles or speedcarts, according to design, and tech- divided nically the horses are into trotters and pacers, accord- ing to their gait.
A spectacle
Enthusiasts claim that at its best this form of racing pro- a marvellous spectacle, vides and that when carried out
is under floodlights there
il for exeite- racing to touch ment.
The genior
no
enthusiast in
Opposition
me
Mr Prescott belleves trotting will be a similar success here one day, and he helped to found the National Trotting Associn-
its develop tion to superviss
the associa ment, He is now tion's president..
But progress has frankly been slow, and I asked him why. It is, of course, a touchy subject in trotting circles. "We have had a great deal of oppo- repiled Mr Prescott sition," darkly. "Dog racing has been a big compettor, and then the Jockey Club has blocked progress.
our
"We are not allowed to hold meetings on pukka raceopurses. and that means we usually have to prestal trotting to the public a field, In the wrong way-k with no slands, at the mercy of the weather.
"And then we are not allow-
Britain is Mr R. H. Prescott, an ed to have a Tole When you
Four D. Jones BY MADDOCKS-
I'M SORRY,
BUT I'M LOOKING
FOR WOMEN, MBANT NO HARM
AMANLA MAN
GIRLS, I'VE FOUND
MYSELF A MAN
A trotter in action.
Mr Reginald Prescott gives Main Axworthy. a work-out on the training track at his farm,
have only bookies you are al- ways liable to get crooked busi- news with drivers-you · 50m2- times get collusion between the bookles and the drivers. They can lie the job up so easily. is what has killed the sport so far.".
That
Some years ago he tried to persuade the Tole to operate at trotting meetings, but they refuser.
American animals are bred from original British stock.
An English trotter named Messenger, imported into Pean- sylvania in 1788, is American trotting's Founding Father.
In Britain now a good animal costs only £280, and to the great relief of the enthusiasts
passive British public.
OLYMPIC HEROES
Mighty Babe -golden girl of sport
They called her "Babe" but she preferred to be known as Mildred. At her peak, when she was hammering a golf ball 100 yards further than any other woman, she had the build of a Wagnerian soprano. But she still moved with the grace of a gazelle,
Mildred Babe" Zaharias, sixth of the seven children of a Norwegian ship's carpenter who settled in Texas, was the greatest woman athlete ever born.
·She wee heulen, only twice in - 694 " BANAUDUT contests and sho
Exceliot at 19 sports.
One deleat came when she was a member of a losing basketball team. The other was in the Olympic Games at Los
Mr. S. J. Coleman, who manages the Welwyn stadium, was pleasantly surprised to find | Angeles In 1932. that 2,000 people turmed up at the first experimental meeting hold
earlier this year. He thinks the number will increase.
Muscle doll
He is now mediating the original stock is still it be a trotting boom in Britain, the Los Angeles Gamies by
a second attempt..
He concedes, though, that oppositica from orthodox racing was only natural, because trat- rival. "Look at what happen- ting is potentially a damaging ed in Holland. They allowed the first race at, an ordinary meeting to be a trolling event, and now trotting has
almost eliminated ordinary racing."
Big money
In the United States, trotting has not quite done that but it is having a great success. Most towns have their own trotting track, and the big crowds have into the brought big money
has sport. A yearling
been sold for £250,000, and the sales generally average higher prices. tham those at Newmarket.
The big prizes justify these prices, but they are slightly galling to British fanciers, because all these expensive
KORISN'T HE
BEAUTIFUL? AND HE'S MINE-
ALL MINE
FERDINAND
AH-CHOO
By Mik
A boom?
There are, in fact, about 1,500
trotting horses in the country. Good one cover a mile in a shade over two minutes which. is slower than flat-racing, but trotters have the advantage of being able to reproduce their best speeds long after racehorses have retired-up to the age of 14 or even after.
Nearly all the 5,000 or 加 people active in the sport here are amateurs, the professionals having emigrated to where big- ger money awaits them
And professional smiths who understand how to shoe the animals they use cunningly weighted shoes to encourage the Only a handful of them left," right gall-are also scarce,
says Mr Prescott,
-With all the discouragements, though, the devotees persistin trying to bestow the benefits of trotting on the more or less im-
Sheaffer's
SUVISSA IN
Ah! That Food! That Service! That, Sunssaik!
PEM
Ben For Men THE BOLD NEW
PEN DESIGNED EXCLUSIVELY FOR MEN
The iron-willed "muscle doll," as she was fondly tagged by a So perhaps one day there will secilen of her fans, trained for too. At least it seems to offer going to bed at 6.30 p.m. so as three things which British to get 18 hours rest. crowds" relish--spectacle, horses, And though the. "Babe" and betting.
qualified for five events in the Who knows? The future of United States Olymple try-outs Bracing may be more in--she was allowed to enter only, volved than we suspect with three-the 80 metre, hurdles, those dashing Uitle mulkies the javelin, and the high jump. which are bowling round the in ever- world's racecourses growing numbers.
-London Express Service.
CHESS
by LEONARD BARDEN
(5856)
Here a position from Actual play: Waite to more and win
Solution No. 5855: IX QBP (threat 2 Q-Q3), B X_B
Midred, Just 18 broke the existing world records in all three events fest no other Olymple sihlete, male or female, has ever accomplish-
MILDRED 'BABE' ZAHARIAS
She was disqualified on
· technical point," Her Jumping ́style, named by her saế Tha Texta Holl," was pronounced. invalid.
The arm that was powerful enough, Uterally, to slap à man That style, a form of straddle, down whipped the German is recognised now as the most. world record-holder Fraulein efficient method of high-jump-
javelining. with a Braumueller throw of 143f1, 4in,
At a loss
The fleet legs that were, to
Then, and even today, the take "Babe" Zaharias round the world raced over the 80 metres experts are at a loss to explain hurdles in another world how the judges arrived at their beating performance of 11.7pec, decision to disqualify Mildred
The best sporting bruin a girl Zaharias. could wish for concentrated There is one more mystery every muscle on the job of rais- that has never been positively ing the "Babe's" 10st. 5lb. over solved, the high jump bar, ・・・
Mystery decision
And this was to be the scene for the final sensation, the blow that pained Mildred for the rest of her brilliant career.
Three, girls had tied at the then world record of 5ft. 3in.
The "Babe" and her team- mate Jean Shiley survived to
chi 2 G-Q3, or 4 P clear 5ft 54-then failed BX BP of 1. XX when the bar was raised again.
So the girls were equal. Who 2 Q-Ets, or 1 . . . K-B4; RX QP or 1... It XR; z was to be the Olympic
jump champion of 19327
Not the "Babe,"
tt
"Landon Kapriza Bernice,
How could the "Babe" be disqualified from first place be- cause of her jumping style and Tyet allowed to take second place
and a silver medal?.
Mildred "Babe-Zaharias, all- American girl of steel, broke down and cried' when she was told of the judges' decision.
It was one of the very few times she showed tears in her long sporting life.
Defeat did not make her ory,
it was the bitter knowledge that she had not been beaten square- highly that made this the toughest
moment of her career---Lond
| Express Service.
REVOLUTIONARY NEW ITEMS
NAC TRANSISTORIZED POWER PHONE
HOUSEWIFE TO
SERVAL
MANADER TO
NANCY
I WONDER WHAT SAP WROTE THIS
(I LOVE YOU
DON'T SAY THAT ::: THOSE ARE THE
THREE SWEETEST
WORDS
By Erale Bushmiller
NO THEY
AREN'T--
THOSE
ARE
SWISSAIR
Е
CLOSED UNTIL SEPTEMBER
ROWNTREE'S
DELICIOUS
SMARTIES
OFFICE
KITCHEN
BRICK BRADFORD
WE HAVE DR EASTLANDE HABERATORYLINDER" SURVEILLANCE. WELL
KNOW THEN THE TIME
TOP ARRIVES
WE HAVE NO
WHEN THAT
LOVE You
(NR. GREERSON,
THIS MESSAGE
HAS JUST ARRIVED
THANK YOU!LTHIS! IS VIHAT WEYS BEEN
WAITING FOR?
By Paul Norris
MILK
CHOCOLATE BEANS
ILFORD
TO ENGINE ROOM
For the first timetelenbone bandante powered by transistors built into telephoña arm. No outalde battery or other power seproe needed.
Mouth and ear pieces consisted by balanced amature system microphons, in this rascons, talking and beading are louder and much clear than ordinary micro receiving aystem:
This band phone set la battery operated, and required one each, 18 Volf battery
Rimply connect unile with?
up 50-195-mies: Iden
Bola Aginta: CHI FALCO
Head, Houg Hot
Natino Rd. Rowloans