286 The Trotting and the Pacing Horse 



1866 that I began to advocate improvement, and 

 kept at it until a change was inaugurated. The 

 call was for a congress of trotting tracks to 

 formulate rules for the government of trotting 

 races on all the tracks of the country. Hon. 

 Amasa Sprague, president of the Narragansett 

 Park Association, Providence, Rhode Island, was 

 a man of importance in those days, and when he 

 issued a call for a meeting at the Everett House, 

 New York, February 2, 1870, the responses were 

 liberal. Forty-seven tracks were represented by 

 105 delegates, and much labor was given by 

 a committee of 13 to drafting a set of rules. 

 The gentlemen who composed this committee 

 were Isaiah Rynders, B. G. Bruce, H. S. Russell, 

 Horatio Page, Thomas J. Vail, Alden Goldsmith, 

 D. Goodhall, Jesse Boynton, J. L. Cassidy, C. J. 

 Hamlin, George B. Hall, and L. L. Dorsey. 

 The Fashion Course rules and the racing rules 

 were gone over section by section, and the best 

 ideas of both were transferred to the new code. 

 The title of the voluntary association in Febru- 

 ary, 1870, was The National Association for the 

 Promotion of the Interests of the American 

 Trotting Turf. The president was Amasa 

 Sprague of Providence, Rhode Island, and the 



