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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 11, Issue 10 (January 1, 1937)

Pictures Of New Zealand Life

page 45

Pictures Of New Zealand Life

The Country and the Horse.

The Hon. W. E. Parry's recent utterances on the subject of country sport and on racing and hunting must have found cordial approval among the farming people, and in fact among all who hope for a return to the rational use of the horse. As one who was brought up in the saddle, so to say, I rejoiced to read Mr. Parry's enunciation of his racing ideals. He believes in encouraging the hunter type of horse, as opposed to the sprinter, the racing breed which has been reduced to a mere machine for short bursts of speed.

He believes also in encouraging the country race meeting, instead of centralising all the horsemanship and speed tests on the large city courses. The “picnic race meeting” is his ideal; he considers it will help to increase interest in country life among young people and assist to stop the drift to the cities for amusement.

* * *

A great deal could be written in approval of Mr. Parry's views for the reform of racing. Undoubtedly the hunter type of horse, the good all-round animal that can be used as a stock-horse and hack, and carry a fair weight on a long run, is the type we should encourage in this country. Speed and utility are combined in such a horse. The farmer and his sons and daughters would take pride in breeding and training it, and in using it for sport as well as farm and station duty. The light cavalry troop horse that was bred in large numbers in New Zealand in other days is my own ideal of a horse, an animal fit for sharp cross-country runs and stiff jumps, and capable of carrying fifteen stone weight of man and gear on a day's journey.

Riding to hounds helps to produce such a breed, and a country hunt club deserves strong official encouragement so long as it keeps in view the excellent purpose of combining sport with utility. This is a country in which horses will always be needed, away from the motor traffic speed routes, and the well-bred horse which blends in itself the desirable qualities mentioned will always be in demand.

The Township's Race Day.

In my young days when nearly everyone in the country used a horse, and when country people had to rely on their own resources for amusement and recreation, the township's annual race meeting was a popular and pleasant institution. There was a comfortable picnic air about it that made it a gathering for young and old. Farmers and their sons rode their own horses, Maoris rode their horses too; and I remember one meeting on the Upper Waikato frontier at which our doughty neighbour, Te Kooti, of warrior fame, entered a horse of his own; and one of his young Hau-haus rode it. That helped to cement the newly-made friendship between the races. Sport is a great leveller of barriers and animosities.

Racing to-day, centralised on the large city courses, has become a business rather than a sport. Anything that will tend to decentralise it, and to restore the small sports meetings in the country, the more the better, will be a change for the better, a healthy revival of the olden pride of locality and interest in the breeding of good horses.

Forest of the Urewera.

The last great unspoiled area of native forest in the North Island is the Urewera Country. Comparatively unspoiled, that is, for it is not now in exactly the condition in which I first saw it when I travelled through it on horseback and foot nearly forty years ago. A motor highway has been made through the heart of it, and timber cottages are replacing the Maoris’ primitive whare in the cutlivated valleys. There are pakeha commercial interests that have turned an acquisitive eye in that direction and there are those who ask, “What's the good of all that bush? Cut it out and open up the Urewera! Turn the timber into cash and put sheep on the hills.”

Bless their eyes, those people would soon make a ghastly ruin of the glorious wave upon wave of forested ranges as they have of other hilly parts of the Island. Happily they are not to have their way, if the present Government can prevent it.

The Hon. Mr. Langstone's announcement that the whole of the Crown's interest in the Urewera Country, totalling 482,000 acres, is to be declared a State reserve, is the best news New Zealand forest-lovers have heard for many a day. This area includes the noble Huiarau and various other ranges, in fact all the wildest and highest parts of the mountain land.

The Minister deserves the warmest praise and congratulations on his timely action.

The conservation of our hill forests, for river-protection and climatic and scenic purposes, is the urgent duty of those in authority. Now the exact nature of the official reserve is important. I hope it will be declared a National Sanctuary, to make it perfectly tapu and secure against all undesirable interference.