Trotting Horses

WITH the exception of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, — who would, by the way, have made an excellent sporting-man, had not the superior attractions of literature and medicine intervened, — I do not know that any writer of mark has ever said a good word for the American trotter. This is a great pity, for the animal plays an important part in the daily life of the whole community, being concerned, as the Autocrat pointed out, even in the early conveyance of milk-cans and in the prompt delivery of fresh rolls. These humble offices have actually been performed by horses who afterward acquired fame upon the track. Within the past year, an old Dutchman, living in Western New York and engaged in the milk business, was astonished and not a little frightened by the pace which his beast set up one frosty morning. The cart was bounced over the pavements of the city where his route lay. the cans hopped and rattled in their seats, and the driver lost his breath. But he had no sooner recovered it than he began to boast of the wonderful speed at which the horse had carried him, and thereafter the animal was taken out, harnessed to a buggy, on Saturday afternoons and like occasions, for a brush on the road with the fast trotters of the neighborhood, all of whom he outstripped. Pretty soon the Dutchman’s son. who had been brought up in this country, procured an old sulky, and put the milkwagon steed in some sort of training. In two months time they appeared at a track, engaged in a race with veteran drivers and horses of established reputation, and beat them all in three straight heats, — a wonderful achievement for a green trotter and jockey, and an immense surprise to the professional persons who had jeered at the uncouth appearance of the new-comers. This case bears out Dr. Holmes’s illustration of the milk-cart; nor is the other example that he gives without foundation in fact. Some years ago, a baker’s horse in Boston, after delivering her rolls and brownbread in the city one day as usual, was driven to Saugus, a distance of about eight miles, and started in a match race at the track there. In the exuberance of her spirits she ran away in the first heat, and went around the course once or twice before she could be stopped. But being allowed to start again, notwithstanding this irregularity, she won the race, and finished her day’s work by bringing the baker back to Boston and beating all the horses that engaged with her on the road home.

It must not be supposed, however, that these animals were entirely of plebeian origin. The milkman’s horse had a dash of thoroughbred in his composition, and the baker’s mare belonged to the incomparable Morgan strain. Indeed it rarely, perhaps never, happens that a horse who is not connected more or less closely with the equine aristocracy becomes distinguished as a trotter. There is a popular superstition that Flora Temple, Dexter, and other celebrated animals were of obscure birth, and began life in humble situations ; but this, as I shall presently show, is not the case. Dutchman, to be sure, an old-time trotter of great courage and bottom, was first used in a string-team at Philadelphia to haul brick ; but he was a horse of good breeding. He was a bay gelding, 15 hands 3 inches high, very powerfully made, bony and strong, with a plain but resolute face, and a fine neck and head. Dutchman’s time for three miles, namely 7 minutes 32½ seconds, remained the best on record from the year when it was made, 1839, till 1872, when Huntress, a beautiful bay mare, reduced it to 7.21¼. Some circumstances in the career of Dutchman will be mentioned further on.

There is another reason why every American ought to take an interest in the trotter. Trotting, like base-ball, is, as its votaries often remark, a national sport, — national in the sense not only that it is popular among us,. but that it was created by us ; and consequently anybody in the United States who fails to take an interest in it is so far forth out of touch with his countrymen. There is something lacking in him, —some obscure though doubtless valuable trait, which, if he possessed it, would surely make him interesting in other directions, but which is most conspicuously revealed in a fondness for the track. Running horses furnish a spirited and beautiful sport, but the runner can never be domesticated ; whereas any man who owns a single horse may find himself in the possession of a trotter, or at least of an animal which he considers to be such,—and this comes to nearly the same thing. The very beast who drags a family carryall may, like the milkman’s or the baker’s nag, prove worthy of a better fate. It must be remembered that few horses trot fast naturally. They require skillful driving and training ; often, also, the judicious application of weights, boots, rollers, and the like, in order to lengthen their stride or to correct other imperfections in their gait. It is possible, therefore, for a horse to have “the making of a trotter in him” during an indefinite period ; and so long as the owner refrains from putting his inchoate racer to the test, his opportunity for boasting about the animal’s latent speed is almost unlimited. Scoffers may throw cold water upon his pretensions, but no man can assert absolutely that he is wrong.

The history of Flora Temple, who reduced the record for a mile from 2.25½ to2.19¾, illustrates the fact that trotters, like angels, may be entertained unawares.

She was well born, her sire being Kentucky Hunter, but in her early youth she was considered almost worthless on account of her wild and, as everybody supposed, ungovernable temper. Flora, as they called her at first, was a roughcoated little bay mare, not over 14 hands 2 inches high, but possessed of a blood-like head, shapely neck, long body, straight back, and fine legs with powerful muscles. Her birthplace was in the neighborhood of Utica, New York, where she was sold at the age of four years for the small sum of $13. A few months later, for $80, she passed into the hands of a drover, who took her with him on his way to the city of New York. One bright morning in June. 1850, this drover was passing through the beautiful village of Washington Hollow. He was mounted on a fine gray stallion, and keeping his cattle in line, while the small bay horse was tied to the tail-board of an open wagon, drawn by two stout mules and driven by a sleepy negro. This interesting procession attracted the notice of one Mr. Jonathan A. Vielee, a shrewd horseman, who happened to be basking in the sun at his stable door on the morning in question, and who, remarking the strong and gamy appearance of the future Queen of the Turf, hailed the drover, and presently “ had the little mare by the nose, and was studying every mark upon her teeth. He then " —I quote from Mr. George Wilkes’s history of Flora Temple — “ took hold of her feet; and the little mare lifted them successively in his hand, with a quiet, downward glance, that seemed to say, ' You ’ll find everything right there, Mr. Vielee, and as fair and as firm as if you wished me to trot for a man’s life ! ' And so Mr. Vielee did ; and as he dropped the last foot, he liked the promise of the little mare amazingly, and it struck him that if he could get her for any sum short of $250 she would be a mighty good bargain.

“ ' She is about five years old ? ’ said Mr. Vielee, inquiringly.

“ ‘ You have seen for yourself, ’ replied the drover.

“ ‘ I should judge she was all right ? ’ again suggested Mr. Vielee, partly walking round the mare, and again looking at her up and down.

“ ‘ Sound as a dollar, and kind as a kitten,’responded the drover, as firmly as if prepared to give a written guarantee.

“ 'Not always so kind, neither,’ said Mr. Vielee, looking again steadily at the mare’s face, " or I don’t understand that deviltry in her eye. But that’s neither here nor there. You say the mare is for sale. Now, let’s know what you will take for her.’ The result was that Mr. Vielee bought her for $175.

“ ‘ And a pretty good price at that,’ said the drover to himself on pocketing the cash, ‘ for an animal that only cost me eighty, and who is so foolish and flighty that she will never be able to make a square trot in her life.’ ”

A few weeks later Mr. Vielee took his new purchase to New York, and sold her to Mr. G. E. Perrin for $350. “ In the hands of Mr. Perrin,”relates the graphic writer from whom I have quoted already, " the little bay mare, who had proved so intractable, so flighty, so harum-scarum, and, to come down to the true term, so worthless to her original owners, was favored with more advantages than ever she had enjoyed before. She was not only introduced to the very best society of fast-goers on the Bloomingdale and Long Island roads, but she was taught, when ' flinging herself out’ with exuberant and superabundant spirit all over the road, as it were, to play her limbs in a true line, and give her extraordinary qualities a chance to show their actual worth. If ever she made a skip, a quick admonition and a steady check brought her to her senses ; and when, in her frenzy of excitement at being challenged by some tip-top goer, she would, to use a sportsman’s phrase, ‘ travel over herself ’ and go ' up ’ into the air, she was steadied and settled down by a firm rein into solid trotting and good behavior in an instant. The crazy, flighty, half-racking, and half-trotting little bay mare became a true stepper, and very luckily passed out of her confused ‘ rip-i-ty clip-i-ty ’ sort of going into a clean, even, long, low, locomotive-trotting stroke. Many a man who came up to a road tavern, after having been unexpectedly beaten by her, would say to her owner, as they took a drink at the bar, ‘ That’s a mighty nice little mare of yours, and if she was only big enough to stand hard work you might expect a good deal from her.”

But Flora Temple was big enough, as her subsequent career proved. Little horses, in fact, often make the best weight-pullers and stand the most work. Hopeful, whose time to a skeleton wagon for a mile, 2.16½ made in 1878, still remains the best on record, was a small gray horse, and, like almost all weight-pullers, a very short and quick stepper. " If little horses of this sort be particularly examined,”says a high authority, “ it will commonly be found that, though they are low, they are long in all the moving parts ; and their quarters are generally as big and sometimes a deal bigger than those of many much larger horses.” This remark would apply to Arab coursers, who, although their muscles are great, rarely stand above 14¾ hands high; and many thoroughbreds, conspicuous for their staying powers, have had the same general conformation.

Flora Temple soon came into the hands of the noted trainer and driver, the late Hiram Woodruff, a man of sound judgment and of the purest integrity, whose book, The Trotting Horse of America, is a classic in equine literature from which I shall freely quote. It shows on almost every page that its writer possessed two great qualities, — a faculty of grasping general principles, and a readiness to depart from them under particular circumstances. These, I venture to say, are qualities that distinguish the master spirits in all departments of activity. Under Woodruff’s tuition Flora Temple became a great race horse. She reduced the mile record, as we have seen, from 2.25½ to 2.19¾, being equally good at two and three mile heats. There were several contemporary trotters, between whom and Flora Temple very little difference in speed existed when they first encountered her ; but she outlasted the others. Some of these horses actually beat her once or twice: but the longer they kept at it, the wider became the distance between them and the little bay mare, of whom it had been said that she might prove valuable if she were only big enough to stand hard work. Highland Maid, a well-bred, long-stepping bay mare; Tacony, the first horse to make a record of 2.25½; Lancet; Ethan Allen, a small but beautiful and very fast bay stallion of Morgan blood; Rose of Washington ; Princess, a very handsome, high-bred mare, who came on from California expressly to beat Flora Temple ; John Morgan, a big, fine-looking, golden-chestnut horse of good breeding, brought from the West for the same purpose; George M. Patchen, a famous brown stallion of Morgan and Clay blood, — all these horses and many others engaged with Flora Temple, sometimes “ turn and turn about,” but all were badly beaten in the end. “ Flora Temple,” said Hiram Woodruff, “ would train on and get better, when thoroughly hardened, towards the middle and close of the season. This is one of the most valuable qualities that a trotting horse can have. The greatest excellence in trotting is only to be reached through much labor and cultivation. Now, if strong work at a few sharp races overdoes a horse and knocks him off, it is a great, almost an insurmountable obstacle to his attaining the greatest excellence, even in speed for a mile.”

After Flora Temple came Dexter, a brown horse with a white face and four white feet. Like her he had remarkable courage and endurance, his dam being of the famous American Star family.

“ Some of the Stars,” Hiram Woodruff said, " have given out in the legs ; but their pluck is so good that they stand up to the last, when little better than mere cripples. It is no wonder that they have great game and courage; for Star’s grandsire was the thoroughbred four-miler Henry, who ran for the South on the Island here against the Northern horse Eclipse, in 1823. I went to see the race, being then six years old, and got a licking for it when I came home.”

Dexter was born and reared in the purple, being first sold at the age of four, when four hundred dollars were paid for him. He lowered the record to 2.17¾, and doubtless would have reduced it still further had he not become the property of Mr. Robert Bonner, who withdrew him from the turf. The excellence of this horse probably gave the finishing blow to an old superstition which is embodied in the following stanza: —

The first great performance of Dexter was made in October, 1865, when he trotted under saddle against time, being matched to beat 2.19. He was trained by Woodruff, but ridden in the race by John Murphy, a very skillful horseman, and one of the few jockeys whose reputation for honesty is absolutely unblemished. In this match, Dexter trotted the first half mile in 1.06½ ; but after passing that point he broke. “ When he broke,” Hiram Woodruff relates, ‘‘the people cried, ' He can’t do it this time ! ’ But he settled well, and when he came on to the home stretch he had a fine burst in. I was up towards there, and sung out to Johnny, as he came by me,

' Cut him loose ; you ’ll do it yet! ' Then Johnny clucked to him, and he went away like an arrow from the bow, true and straight, and with immense resolution and power of stroke. I knew he must do it if he did not break before he got to the score, and up I tossed my hat into the air. I never felt happier in all my life. The time given by the judges was 2m. 18⅕s.; the outsiders made it somewhat less.”

Of the great trotters, Dexter seems to have been the best “all-round” horse, for none of his contemporaries was able to beat him either in one, two, or three mile heats ; and he showed his superiority to a wagon or under saddle as well as in harness. Hiram Woodruff anticipated but did not live to see his greatest triumphs. “ It is a long time now,” he wrote shortly before his own death, “ since I took Mr. Foster to his box, and, pointing out his very remarkable shape,—the wicked head, the gamecock throttle, the immense depth over the heart, the flat, oblique shoulder, laid back clean under the saddle, the strong back, the mighty haunches, square and as big as those of a cart-horse, and the good, wiry legs, —predicted to him that here stood the future Lord of the Trotting World.”

Goldsmith Maid, who reduced the mark from 2.17¾ to 2.14, had almost the appearance of a thoroughbred. She was rather small, being 15¼ hands high, but her legs were “clean,” that is free from fat, wide, and wiry ; her head and neck were finely cut and indicative of good breeding; she was deep through the lungs, but so small in the waist as to suggest a lack of constitution, although she was in reality extremely tough and lasting ; her feet were small and good. It was said of this famous mare that “ in her highest trotting form, drawn to an edge, she is almost deer-like in appearance; and when scoring for a start, and alive to the emergencies of the race, with her great flashing eye and dilated nostrils, she is a perfect picture of animation and living beauty. Her gait is long, bold, and sweeping, and she is, in the hands of a driver acquainted with her peculiarities, a perfect piece of machinery.”

Not a few horses like Goldsmith Maid have had this peculiar thin-waisted appearance, and yet were possessed of much nervous strength and of great courage. A famous trotter described by Hiram Woodruff was of this character. “ Rattler,” he says, “ was a bay gelding, 15 hands high, a fast and stout horse, though light-waisted and delicate in appetite and constitution. He was a very long stridor, and when going his best it sometimes seemed as though he would part in the middle.” He was afterward taken to England, where, so well did the climate suit him, he gained in appetite, and consequently in health and strength.

Goldsmith Maid, when six years of age, was sold by her breeder for $260, having never been put to work on account of her nervous disposition. She had, however, taken a very creditable part in certain amateur running races, which were held in a grassy lane about one quarter of a mile long. These dashes always took place by moonlight, being unauthorized by the elders of the family, but secretly enjoyed by the boys on the farm. Soon after she left her birthplace the Maid was sold again for $600 to Mr. Alden Goldsmith, a famous horseman, by whom she was named. He kept her for five years, and sold her for $20,000. Her dam and the dam of her sire were both well-bred animals, though their pedigree is not known , and her sire was a noble horse called Alexander’s Abdallah, who, in February, 1865, had the ill fortune to be stolen by guerrillas from his home in Kentucky. The next day he was recaptured, and, though unshod, ridden fifty miles by a Federal soldier over rough and stony roads. Becoming exhausted, he was abandoned at the roadside without food or shelter, and died a few days afterward of pneumonia.

All the great trotters have had grooms, or ” rubbers,” as they are technically called, between whom and the horses a strong affection existed. The name of Peter Conover is linked in this way with that of Dexter. Conover not only “ rubbed ” Dexter, but made most of his “boots,” and drove him at exercise. Rarus had his “ Dave ” and “ Barney. A colored man named Grant was transferred to Mr. Bonner with Maud S., as being necessarily appurtenant to her. “ Lucy Jimmy ” was, as his name denotes, the attendant of Lucy, a celebrated mare contemporary with Goldsmith Maid, and very little inferior to her in speed. “ Old Charlie" faithfully served the Maid herself for many years, during five of which he was never absent from her stall except for two nights. Goldsmith Maid, like Rarus and like Johnston, the wonderful pacer, had a little dog as a companion.¹ “ They were a great family,” says Mr. Doble, “ that old mare, Old Charlie, and the dog, — apparently interested in nothing else in the world but themselves, and getting along together as well as you could wish. When it was bed-time, Charlie would lie down on his cot in one corner of the stall, his pillow being a bag containing the mare’s morning feed of oats ; the Maid would ensconce herself in another corner ; and somewhere else in the stall the dog would stretch himself out. About five o’clock in the morning the Maid would get a little restless and hungry. She knew well enough where the oats were, and would come over to where Charlie lay sleeping and stick her nose under his head, and in this manner wake him. and give notice that she wanted to be fed.”

I shall speak hereafter of Goldsmith Maid’s remarkable intelligence in “scoring.”But perhaps the most interesting fact in her career is that she made her fastest time, 2.14, at the age of nineteen, and a year later she trotted one heat in 2.14½, and forty others in less than 2.30. She remained on the track for nearly fifteen years, conquered all the fastest horses of her time, and trotted in all 332 heats under 2.30. She lasted so long partly because of her good breeding, and partly, no doubt, because she was never trained or worked until she had become a mature horse. The fashion now is to make the trotter’s career begin while he is still a colt, but although the practice has not been tested thoroughly, it must be fraught with danger. If it ever should become general, it is certain that many young horses would be overworked and ruined every year, comparatively few drivers having the discretion and patience that are required for the safe “ preparation " of a colt. There have been other horses who, like Goldsmith Maid, being well bred and beginning at a mature age, lasted a long while on the track. Dutchman, who trotted his first race at six years of age, was still a sound and fast horse at eighteen. Topgallant, a son of the thoroughbred imported horse Messenger, and the first to make a record of 2.40, is a still more extraordinary example. When twenty-four years old he trotted a very hard race of four three-mile heats against all the best horses of his day, winning one heat; and the week after he engaged in another race of three-mile heats, which he won. Old Topgallant was a great favorite of Hiram Woodruff, who as a boy took care of him, and as a young man trained, rode, and drove him. Woodruff describes Topgallant as “a dark bay horse, 15 hands 3 inches high, plain and raw-boned, but with rather a fine head and neck, and an eye expressive of much courage. He was spavined in both hind legs, and his tail was slim at the root. His spirit was very high, and yet he was so reliable that he would hardly ever break, and his bottom was of the finest and toughest quality. He was more than fourteen years of age before he was known at all as a trotter, except that he could go a distance, the whole length of the New York Road, as well as any horse that had ever been extended on it.”

At the close of the civil war there was living on a small farm at Greenport, Long Island, one Mr. R. B. Conklin, a retired stage carpenter, who by industry and thrift had saved a little money. Mr. Conklin had a passion for horses, especially for trotters, and he conceived the idea that a certain colt born on his farm was destined to become the champion trotter of the world. The mother of the colt was a fine gray nag called Nancy Awful, half-thoroughbred, and very high spirited. She belonged to Mr. Conklin, and his belief in her and in her colt became with him a sort of religion. Many men, no doubt, under similar circumstances have been equally enthusiastic, but the peculiarity in this case was that Mr. Conklin had always enjoyed the reputation of being “ hard-headed,” cautious, and shrewd. His neighbors therefore came to the charitable conclusion that on this particular subject the old carpenter had gone mad. The foal was certainly very promising, long, muscular, and full of life and spirit. " From the day of its birth,” says the historian, “ it was treated differently from any other animal on the place. As soon as it had been weaned, a suitable stall was built in a big barn for its accommodation, and from that day forth nothing was left undone to secure its comfort; and it was not long before Conklin and his colt were the talk of that end of Long Island. When the colt was three years old it was broken to harness, and during the following summer took part in a little race on the Island, winning the contest in about three minutes. Then the old man was more certain than ever that he had the wonder of the world, and redoubled his efforts in the way of care, etc., had a special stable built for the colt, with an office adjoining, where in winter, all seated around a big fire, he would entertain his neighbors telling them what a great horse that colt was going to be. . . . For the next two years Mr. Conklin gave almost his entire time to the care and education of this colt. He bought himself a light wagon, got a set of double harness, secured an old runner, and as he was a very heavy man, and did not want to compel the colt to draw his weight, he hooked him by the side of the runner, and in this manner he received his first lesson in trotting.” ²

The extraordinary part of this story is that the colt, who was called Rarus, perfectly fulfilled the extravagant expectations of his breeder and owner, becoming the champion trotter of the world, and reducing the record in 1878 to 2.13¼. Mr. Conklin managed him well, for John Splan, a great driver, in whose hands Rarus passed the famous part of his career, declared that he never drove a better broken horse.

Rarus was a rangy bay. of high courage. with a plain but blood-like and intelligent head, a good neck, and poor feet. Excepting the tendency to inflammation in his feet, he was a remarkably healthy horse, never losing his appetite, despite the long journeys that he made and the hard races that he trotted. At one time Rarus served as a foil for Goldsmith Maid, just as in earlier days George M. Patchen, John Morgan, and other horses did for Flora Temple, and as the same Patchen and Princess did later for Dexter. But in this case there was a difference. Rarus was much younger than Goldsmith Maid, and he was controlled by a driver who had no notion of using him up in hopeless contests.

Both horses spent the winter of 1876— 77 in California, where they gave some “ exhibition ” races, no pools being sold, and it being understood that Rarus would not attempt to win. During this time, also, Splan, the driver of Rarus, a man eminently gifted with the wisdom of the serpent, took pains that none of the sporting-men from San Francisco who visited the track occasionally should ever time Rarus at his best. The consequence was that Splan’s horse came to be regarded in California as a much-overrated beast. In the spring, on the Maid’s twenty-first birthday, Budd Doble drove her a mile in 2.16 ; but a day or two later Splan privately timed his horse in 2.15. Soon afterward, a purse was offered in a " free-for-all " race, near San Francisco, and both Goldsmith Maid and Rarus were entered. The betting men supposed that the Maid would have an easy victory, but Splan and his friends, who wagered an enormous sum on the result, thought otherwise, and Rarus won. The sporting Californians were freely bled of their money, and Splan was, in consequence, criticised as a robber who had come on from the East with the express purpose of plundering honest men. His conduct toward Budd Doble, his friend and the owner of the Maid, may have been somewhat disingenuous, but there was nothing of which the public had a right to complain, for the race was a fair one. This trot marked the end of the Maid’s public career. Rarus soon took her place as a “star” performer, and two years later he was sold to Mr. Robert Bonner for $36,000.

No sketch of Rarus would be complete without some mention of his remarkable friendship for a dog. When the horse was in California, a fireman gave to Splan a wiry-haired Scotch terrier pup, who was then two months old, and weighed when full grown only fifteen pounds. Splan in turn gave the pup to Dave, the groom of Rarus, with the caution not to let the horse hurt him, for on several occasions Rarus had bitten dogs that ventured into his stall. But to this terrier, who is described as possessing “ almost human intelligence,” the trotter took a great fancy, which the dog fully returned. They became fast and inseparable friends. " Not only,” says Mr. Splan, “were they extremely fond of each other, but they showed their affection plainly as did ever a man for a woman. We never took any pains to teach the dog anything about the horse. Everything he knew came to him by his own patience. From the time I took him to the stable, a pup, until I sold Rarus they were never separated an hour. We once left the dog in the stall while we took the horse to the blacksmith shop, and when we came back we found he had made havoc with everything there was in there, trying to get out, while the horse during the entire journey was uneasy, restless, and in general acted as badly as the dog did. Dave remarked that he thought that we had better keep the horse and dog together after that. When Rarus went to the track for exercise or to trot a race, the dog would follow Dave around and sit by the gate at his side, watching Rarus with as much interest as Dave did. When the horse returned to the stable after a heat, and was unchecked, the dog would walk up and climb up on his forward legs and kiss him, the horse always bending his head down to receive the caress. In the stable, after work was over, Jim and the horse would often frolic like two boys. If the horse lay down, Jim would climb on his back, and in that way soon learned to ride him ; and whenever I led Rarus out to show him to the public, Jim invariably knew what it meant, and enhanced the value of the performance by the manner in which he would get on the horse’s back. On these occasions the horse was shown to halter, and Jimmy, who learned to distinguish such events from those in which the sulky was used, would follow Dave and Rarus out on the quarter stretch ; and then when the halt was made in front of the grand stand, Dave would stoop down, and in a flash Jimmy would jump on his back, run up his shoulder, from there leap on the horse’s back, and there he would stand, his head high in the air and his tail out stiff behind, barking furiously at the people. He seemed to know that he was as much a part of the show as the horse, and apparently took great delight in attracting attention to himself.”

When Rarus was sold to Mr. Bonner Splan sent Jimmy with the horse, rightly judging that it would be cruel to separate them. But in Mr. Bonner’s stable there was already a bull-terrier in charge, and one day when, for some real or fancied affront, the small dog attacked the larger one, the latter took Jimmy by the neck and was fast killing him ; but Rarus heard his outcries, and perceiving that his little friend was in danger and distress, pulled back on the halter till it broke, rushed out of his stall, and would have made short work with the bull-terrier had he not been restrained by the grooms.

The examples which I have cited prove that horses are far more capable of attaching themselves to other animals, man included, than is generally supposed ; for neither Dexter, nor Goldsmith Maid, nor Rarus was particularly affectionate in disposition. There is recorded one extraordinary case of friendship between an old horse and a young one. A trotting-bred colt, called Bay, had conceived a great fondness for a gray gelding who was pastured in the same lot with him, his affection being warmly returned. When the young horse arrived at the proper age he was sent to a trainer, but in his new quarters he became unmanageable; he refused to eat, kicked and plunged in his stall, and kept the whole place in an uproar. Finally he was returned to the farm, and put back in the field with his gray friend, where he seemed perfectly contented. His owner then concluded that he would have to send the old horse also to the trainer, as a sort of companion or nurse to the young one. This he did, and thereafter the two animals were never separated. When Bay’s education was so far advanced that he was thought worthy to go on the “grand circuit,” the gray gelding was taken with him from city to city. In the “palace horse car" which conveyed Bay and the other costly racers, a stall was invariably reserved for his humble friend ; and whenever Bay engaged in a race the old horse accompanied the “rubbers” to the track, being always stationed in some place where the young trotter could conveniently see and speak to him between the heats.

The 2.13¼ of Rarus was reduced the very next year by St. Julien to 2.11¼. This is a big, slashing bay horse, with a large but good head, wide hips, and powerful hind legs. His sire was Volunteer, who was by the famous Rysdyk’s Hambletonian, Volunteer’s dam being a well-bred mare, from whom he derived a handsome head and neck and a high spirit ; these being characteristics seldom found in the Hambletonian strain. The dam of St. Julien was of the Clay family, which he closely resembled. St. Julien. like many trotters, was not brought to his best without the expenditure of exceeding pains on the part of his trainer and driver, Mr. Orrin Hickock. He is a very nervous horse, and it required months of practice before he became accustomed to “scoring,” so that he was fit to start in a race.

A year later, Maud S. reduced the record to 2.10¾, and again, in 1885, to 2.08¾, which is still the best time. JayEye-See, with his record of 2.10, held the supremacy for a single day in 1884. He is an honest but ugly little black horse, having hind legs of tremendous power, which propel him with the accuracy and force of locomotive drivingwheels. Jay-Eye-See was by Dictator, a son of Rysdyk’s Hambletonian, his dam being a daughter of Pilot, Jr., and his grandam being of the famous Lexington race-horse blood. Maud S. was bred in much the same way. Her sire was Harold, by Rysdyk’s Hambletonian ; her dam being Miss Russell, by Pilot, Jr., and her grandam another descendant of Lexington. Maud S. shows her thoroughbred quality in every line. She is a medium-sized golden chestnut, with a beautiful neck, a large, but bony, clean-cut, and noble head, ears that are well shaped, though a little too big, and a large eye, full of intelligence and courage. She has a straight back and strong quarters. Her present owner, Mr. Robert Bonner, says of her, “Maud S. is the most intelligent and the most affectionate animal that I have ever owned. She has, however, ‘ a will of her own,’ and would resent harsh treatment of any kind; but if you use her gently and kindly you can do anything with her. Solomon’s dictum concerning children would not answer in her case. If you did not ‘spare the rod’ you would be sure to ‘ spoil ’ her. I would as soon think of striking a woman as to give Maud S. a sharp cut with a whip.” There was a time in the career of Maud S. when she was wild, ungovernable, and, as a racing mare, nearly if not quite worthless. But a long course of patient training brought her back to her original state, and she is now perhaps the best driving horse as well as the fastest trotter in the world.

In the course of this brief survey it must have occurred to the reader that there is one respect in which all the most distinguished trotters have resembled each other, and that is in their nervous energy, in high spirit and courage. That latent flame which the Washington Hollow horseman detected in the eye of Flora Temple came out afterward in the resolute bursts of speed with which she finished her fastest miles. Dexter was represented as being “ chock full of fire and deviltry,” and capable of jumping like a cat. Hiram Woodruff, as we have seen, spoke of his “wicked head.” Goldsmith Maid had a strong will of her own, and the excitement which she betrayed on the eve of a race showed how fine was her organization. “ She would stand quietly enough,” says her driver, “ while being hitched to the sulky,” — although she had previously been kicking and plunging in her stall,— “ but she would shake and tremble until I have heard her feet make the same noise against the hard ground that a person’s teeth will when the body is suddenly chilled ; that is, her feet actually chattered on the ground. The instant I would get into the sulky all this would pass away, and she would start in a walk for the track as sober as any old horse you ever saw.” Rarus was so nervous that he never could have been driven with safety on the road, and his courage was of the finest temper. St. Julien was exceedingly high strung, and in hands less patient and discreet than those of his trainer might never have been subdued to the purposes of racing. Jay-Eye-See, though I know less of his personal history, is notorious for the pluck that he showed on the hist quarters of his hard miles; and Maud S. is the most spirited, the most determined, and at the same time the gentlest of animals. It does not seem unreasonable to trace the fineness of nerve and strength of will displayed by these horses to the thoroughbred blood which runs in their veins.

Whatever its origin, this “do or die ” quality, as sporting-men term it, goes far to redeem the trotting-track from those degrading associations with which, one must admit, it is almost always connected. Man may take a lesson from the horse, as well as from the dog, in courage, in resolution, in discipline. It is a noble Spirit that animates the exhausted trotter, who, obedient to the rein and voice of the jockey, expends his last reserve of force on the home stretch, and staggers under the wire a winner by a head.³

H. C. Merwin.