212 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Now another thing, you go to work and prepare a horse for a 

 race. You spend $25 in getting the horse ready. You bring him 

 out to the fair and they will tell you how to win the money, but I 

 paid $25 and I am the man who knows how to win that money. I 

 am the man that ought to have the privilege of winning that money. 

 It is not the fellow up in the stand. I know a fellow in Tama 

 county, w^e fined him $10 or $15 because his horse beat. You don't 

 want that kind of men in the stand. You want men in the stand 

 that know the race business. I think I know how to win myself 

 and I don't want a man up in the stand to tell me how to win a 

 race, ' ' i ' i 



I want to say that there is more interest taken this fall in the 

 fairs I have attended than in any previous year. In Greenfield it 

 rained "Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The judge said, ' ' Come 

 out boys, and if it don't rain we will race tomorrow." I said to 

 the boys, "I know this president and he is game; we will just 

 stay." Next morning about ten o'clock it quit raining and cleared 

 up and the telephone began to rattle and they came in from thirty 

 miles, some forty. Well, the track was not good, and the question 

 was what should we do. I said to them, ' ' get as many automobiles 

 as you can and let them run slowly over the track, ' ' which they did 

 and it helped it very much. We raced Friday afternoon and Sat- 

 urday afternoon and raced the program out, except one race which 

 was not filled. There was squabbling as to who was to pay this 

 back entry, this blind entry. It was said that the man who won 

 first money ought to pay that and they could not agree and the 

 judge just filled out his own check and said, "go on," Now that 

 is the way if you get men interested, that race horse end of it will 

 take care of itself, 



Mr. Pickard : Mr. President : We have quite a number of horse- 

 men here and I would like a little information along the line of 

 classes that would suit; that is better; especially with regard to 

 early closing. Now we have up in the big eighth district this year 

 two six hundred dollar purses and trotting purses and a pacing 

 purse throughout the whole circuit. We closed the entries on the 

 15th day of May with a half of one per cent, that was $3, then the 

 first of June there would be another one per cent due, the first of 

 July another, and then the day they start another one per cent 

 was due. Our idea was that by giving out a half of one per cent 

 would be only $3. We supposed that there would be a lot of entries 

 there, but the man would give $3 to get in there to see what they 



