TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 137 



I wish to assure you of my sincere appreciation of your efforts in the 

 past and to thank you in advance for the good things that you will do 

 for us during the meeting of the fairs. 

 With best wishes, I am 



Very truly yours, 



(Signed) W. H. Smollinger, 



Secretary. 



I might state that at Chicago there is a meeting of the board of 

 appeals of the American Trotting association today and there will 

 be a joint meeting of the American Trotting association and the 

 directors of the Union Trotting association in which they want to 

 join the American Trotting association and be absorbed by the 

 American Trotting association. It is up to the board of directors of 

 the American whether or not they take them in. Some of the men 

 that have been so active in the Harness Horse association as well as 

 in the American were named directors of the Union Trotting asso- 

 ciation. They named Mr. Curtin who is a director, but I don't think 

 he was active, at all. 



Mr. Curtin : They ptit me in without my knowledge and over my 

 protest. They announced it in the papers a couple of months before 

 I had any official knowldege from them. About two months after 

 I was advised by the newspapers that I had been elected a director, 

 I was notified, and I immediately wrote them that the Harness 

 Horse association was not going to be tied up with the Union 

 Trotting association, and that was all that was said. I haven't had 

 any official communication that I have been dropped, as I told them 

 to do. 



Don Moore : I am just a new-comer to Iowa, but as my ancestors 

 who came over in the Mayflower left the old country because they 

 couldn't talk enough over there, I am going to start out early and 

 make myself heard. I want to ask Mr. Curtin, would it help our 

 game any by circuits offering more early closing events to get around 

 marking these horses? I have found in my experience that the 

 horse will start out early, and by the time he comes to the fifth or 

 sixth fair, and sometimes the fourth fair, he is considered out of his 

 class, and doesn't care to enter him the class races during the later 

 fairs. Will it help any if all of us offered more early closing of 

 slow events? I don't know exactly what I mean by "slow events," 

 but I mean under :22 and :25, so as to keep these horses in their 

 class and allow them to race at the. later fairs. I know that Sioux 

 City lost a large number of horses this year that got out of their 

 class before the season was far advanced. They started out at 



