ri^ht ; the teamster concliules he is a bit stale, 

 and has his shoer put on a heavy shoe and pad, 

 and tells the boy to give him a short journey 

 out on the road every morning because he is 

 "track sick." The boy reports that "he is not 

 track sick, boss ; he tried to run off with me this 

 morning/' The next morning maybe the owner 

 or trainer breezes him a mile and he feels so 

 good they decide to start him. Of course, it 

 wouldn't do to start him with all of that 

 "junk" on his front feet, and his old, light 

 plates are put on, and as soon as the teamster 

 warms him up he notices that he is not as well 

 balanced as he was with the heavier shoes and 

 pads. He may go a heat or two and get beatem 

 and then, as a last resort, have the shoer put 

 on the shoes and pads he had just taken off. 

 Presto ! he can fly ! and he reels it off one-two- 

 three. It was not the weight altogether that 

 balanced him ; it was the protection he got 

 from it and the pad. It gave him more confi- 

 dence, and he carried the extra weight much 

 easier, balanced, than he did the lighter shoe, 

 straining to do something he could not do, 

 while the track was stinging his feet at every 

 stride. The trainer will learn from this ex- 

 perience that he has been shoeing his trotter 

 too light, or has neglected to give his feet 

 proper protection. Also it may lead to an in- 

 vestigation that wnll prove to his entire satis- 

 faction that the horse is suft'ering from corns, 

 or some other foot ailment, and with this cor- 

 rected and his feet protected properly in future 

 he continues to race month after month and 

 season after season, and his successes can be 

 traced back to the day the man in charge de- 



61 



