42 RACEALONG 



training were the keys to his success. No one ever 

 heard if his failures, while there never was a year 

 that the acid test of the race track failed to award 

 him his share of winners. 



His success made him an authority on race horses. 

 On account of this his remark that the sire is more 

 than three-fourths of the stud had weight. He said : 

 "Mares are necessary but at the best they can give 

 you but one failure or winner each year. A stallion 

 will get from fifty to seventy-five. If he is a blank, 

 and many are, two or three years will put a large 

 operator on the rocks." 



In our last conversation at the Pennsylvania Hotel 

 in New York on October 19, John E. Madden referred 

 to Axtell and said: "In 1889, the day that Axtell 

 made his record of 2:12 at Terre Haute, Ind., A. J. 

 Welch and I offered C. W. Williams $101,000 for the 

 colt when we came in from the race track. He de- 

 cHned the offer. .Later that night Williams sold 

 Axtell to Fred Moran, W. P. I jams and John W. 

 Conley for $105,000. It proved a splendid invest- 

 ment." 



Another day while at Greens Farms, Conn., where 

 E. T. Bedford trains his trotters, it being the after- 

 noon on which that well known amateur gave Diplo- 

 mat a record of 2:05l^ to a cart, John E. Madden, 

 after showing the group in the judges' stand a 

 watch that W. C. Whitney presented to him, told 

 how Harry Payne Whitney and Herman B. Duryea 

 took up racing. 



At that time W. C. Whitney was racing a large 



