DAN MACE ON THE SADDLE. 85 



thing settled ; and it is not your driving, friend, either, which 

 makes your horse trot, — that is settled. I Avish there could 

 a fashion come up among us men who drive trotters of driving 

 without reins, until we know more than we do, or until we 

 will admit that we do not know much. A horse cannot talk, 

 and it is very difficult to understand the nature of any being 

 that cannot express its meaning in speech to you. Should 

 you come across a species of human beings that had never 

 uttered a word, and you wanted to master the secrets of their 

 being, how would you begin to master them? What is just 

 the right pull to make on a horse's mouth to save him when 

 he breaks ? When is the proper instant to move that bit in 

 his mouth? What is the right way to handle a horse to get 

 him through the air a second faster to the mile? You cannot, 

 all of you, find out these secrets, friends. A few gifted ones 

 who have the prophetic instinct that can see into the horse 

 nature, like Charley Green, Dan Mace, Budd Doble and the 

 Elder Woodruff, — in many respects better than either, in my 

 judgment, — a few men like those instinctively sense it ; but we 

 ignorant and bungling chaps better let it alone. That is my 

 judgment. My maxim in driving, young man, is, let the 

 horse alone. I presume I do not take the reins in both hands 

 once in three months, so far as need of strength goes, when 

 I am drivins: on the road. Of course there are some horses 

 that we must mal:e trot, if they ever trot at all ; I, for one, 

 do not desire to have anything to do with that sort of horses. 

 But give me a horse that is a natural trotter, and I am sure 

 he will never go except in a trot, unless by reason of some 

 pain in his foot or somewhere else, that may cause him to 

 break. In that case the best way is to let him alone. I am 

 driving a five-year-old colt that is fast. If he breaks, I let 

 him run. After he has been running six or eight rods, I hint 

 to him that it is just as fashionable for him to strike his trot, 

 and if he does not take that hint in a little while, I 2:ive him 

 another. But I don't yank him, or jerk him, "pull him 

 back," "settle him down," "square him," as they say, 

 and all those other excellent phrases that do not mean any- 

 thing. The colt means to trot, and I know it ; and if for 

 some unaccountable cause he breaks, I know the hul)it 

 naturally implanted in him will get him back to his trot 



