60 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



mal becomes full grown, or soon thereafter. The horse 

 is full grown at three or four years of age, consequently 

 we will look at what occurs under continuous training 

 after full growth. 



HIGHEST SPEED OF FLORA TEMPLE AT DIFFERENT AGES 



ONE MILE 



Five years old 2:49 



Seven years old 2:36 



Eight years old 2:27 



Eleven years old 2:24^/^ 



Fourteen years old 2:19% 



Flora Temple was not raced as a six-year-old, but was 

 trained and raced every other year up to sixteen years of 

 age. She continued to gain in trotting power under con- 

 tinued training up to fourteen years of age, though the 

 gain was not uniform. At sixteen she nearly equalled 

 her best previous record, but her racing career was sud- 

 denly terminated by Government action. That was in 

 1861. 



By continually exercising the powers she had. Flora 

 Temple acquired powers she did not have before, and 

 powers which never existed in any ancestor. By her 

 own efforts she acquired powers beyond her inheritance, 

 because no previous horse was capable of trotting as 

 fast as she trotted, and she could not inherit from an- 

 cestors a power which the ancestors did not have. As 

 an eleven-year-old she trotted faster than any previous 

 horse had trotted, and as a fourteen-year-old she broke 

 the world's record four times in succession. Whenever 

 a horse becomes a champion trotter, the fact that he does 

 become a champion is of itself positive evidence that he 

 has greater trotting power than he inherited — greater 

 power than existed in an^^ ancestor, or in any relative of 

 any ancestor. During the past seventy-five years there 

 have been more than twenty such horses to become cham- 

 pions, and no matter how good a horse may be, he can 

 become a champion only as the result of many years of 

 strenuous efforts. He must acquire by his own efforts 

 that which he did not have, and that which never before 

 existed. 



