TROTTING RACES. 95 



is, and going to a gallop or a ran, he must be 

 "caught" by pulling his head to one side, so that he 

 will have to come back to a trot in order to keep his 

 balance ; and in extreme cases it will be necessary to 

 pull him lirst this way, and then that. The break 

 does not come without premonitory signals; there 

 is a sort of general unsteadiness of the horse's gait, 

 when the change is in contemplation, and at the last 

 moment he moves his ears backward. " The sign of 

 a coming break," says Hiram Woodruff, that excel- 

 lent writer from whom I have quoted so much al- 

 ready, " will be discovered by watching the head and 

 ears of the horse. The attention of the driver ought 

 always to be fixed upon the head of his horse. Many 

 a heat is lost by neglect of this matter. A driver is 

 seen coming up the home stretch a length or a length 

 and a half ahead. Both the horses are tired, but 

 the leading one could win. The driver, however, 

 when he gets where the carriages are, turns his head 

 to look at the ladies, or to see whether they are 

 looking at him. Just then the horse gives a twitch 

 with his ears; the driver does n't see it; up flies the 

 trotter, and the ugly man behind holds his horse 

 square, and wins by a neck." 



Of all muscular pleasures, there is none, perhaps, 

 more fine and delicate than this of the skilful reins- 

 man. Whirled along at the rate of a mile in two 

 minutes and a half, he keeps his trotter steady by a 

 slight turn of the wrist, thus moving the bit in the 

 animal's responsive mouth, and so distracting his 

 attention and jogging his memory. If there is any 

 parallel to this exercise, it will probably be found 

 in those clever manipulations of rod and line by 



