72 ORLOF TROTTERS 



he wrote for the Chicago Exposition of 1893, tells us that 

 Professor Strachof and Jicharef, who were Moscow con- 

 temporaries of Count Orlof, described as follows the way in 

 which he exercised his horses : 



" In front of his mansion in Moscow he had built a race- 

 course 1400 feet long (a little over mile), the ends of which 

 were marked by four jaw-bones of whales. Old-timers assert 

 that the Count's horses made this distance in less than 30 

 seconds, and they remember how a servant stood on the 

 course with a large timepiece of the size of a soup plate, over 

 the dial of which ran a big second hand, and how he reported 

 the time made to the Count after the race ; this time seldom 

 exceeding 30 seconds. Coming to the end of the course 

 the Count slowed up and made the semi-circular turn of about 

 400 feet at a good walking pace. Reaching the straight 

 portion again, he pulled on the reins and again his horse 

 trotted for ^ mile, making the turn at the other end slowly. 

 When he had speeded one horse four times over the course, 

 the Count released it and took his seat in another sleigh or 

 drojky, racing the fresh horse also four times over the track." 

 Colonel Ismailof tells us that "these exercises were a very 

 important factor in the production of the trotting breed, as 

 not only the stallions but also the mares, to which he paid a 

 good deal of attention, were trained in this way. It is in- 

 teresting to note that this system of exercising horses adopted 

 by Count Orlof a hundred and twenty-six years ago is 

 almost identical with that of Charles Marvin, the celebrated 

 trainer of the Palo Alto stud. Mr. Marvin says in his book, 

 Training the Trotting Horse : "I am not prepared to say 

 that the length of the brush should ever be increased to over 

 a quarter of a mile." 



The servant who stood on the track with the soup plate 

 dial and the second hand clamped to the half minute in 

 ante sulkey and ante pneumatic tyre days, was evidently as 



