TROTTING HORSES. 67 



of excitement at being challenged by some tip-top 

 goer, she would, to use a sportman's phrase, ' travel 

 over herself and go ' up ' into the air, she was stead- 

 ied and settled down by a firm rein into solid trotting 

 and good behavior in an instant. The crazy, flighty, 

 half-racking, and half-trotting little bay mare became 

 a true stepper, and very luckily passed out of her 

 confused ' rip-i-ty clip-i-ty ' sort of going into a clean, 

 even, long, low, locomotive-trotting stroke. Many a 

 man who came up to a road tavern, after having been 

 unexpectedly beaten by her, would say to her owner, 

 as they took a drink at the bar, 'That's a mighty 

 nice little mare of yours, and if she was only big 

 enough to stand hard work, you might expect a good 

 deal from her.' " 



But Flora Temple w^as big enough, as her subse- 

 quent career proved. Little horses, in fact, usually 

 make the best weight-pullers and stand the most 

 work. Hopeful, whose time to a skeleton wagon for 

 a mile, 2.16^-, made in 1878, remained the best on 

 record till 1891, 1 was a small gray horse, and, like 

 almost all weight-pullers, a very short and quick 

 stepper. " If little horses of this sort be particu- 

 larly examined," says a high authority, " it will com- 

 monly be found that, though they are low, they are 

 long in all the moving parts ; and their quarters are 

 generally as big and sometimes a deal bigger than 

 those of many much larger horses." This remark 

 would apply to Arab coursers, who, although their 

 muscles are great, rarely stand above 14| hands ; and 



1 In the autumn of 1891, Allerton (a grandson of George Wilkes 

 and of Mambrino Patchen) trotted a mile to wagon on a kite- 

 shaped track in 2.15. 



