AMERICAN TROTTING HORSE. 539 



Earus then took up the crown which Goldsmith Maid had laid 

 down, and right regally he wore it. He is a long-striding, ungainly- 

 looking bay gelding, sixteen hands high, with a blaze lace and 

 white ankles. The old adage, "blood will tell," does not hold 

 good in his case, for the pedigree of his sire is entirely unknown, 

 although his owner, Mr. R. B. Conklin, and Mr. George Wilkes, 

 the editor and pnjprietor of the Spirit of the Times, have used 

 every endeavor to trace it. All that is known is that Conklin's 

 Abdallah, for so the sire of Rarus is called, before his purchase 

 by Mr. Conklin, performed the ignoble duty of drawing a fish-cart 

 for a fish-dealer in Fulton Market, New York. Conklin's Abdallah 

 is the sire of seme twenty other horses besides Rarus, but the best 

 of them are only fair roadsters. The dam of Rarus was by Tele- 

 graph, her dam being a Black Hawk mare, and it is probable that 

 she is the source of his wonderful speed. 



Rarus first appeared on the turf at the Suffolk County Fair, at 

 Riverhead, in the fi\\\ of 1871, where he won the four-year old 

 stakes in three straight heats, the best of which was in 2 m. 42 J s. 

 In 1874 he trotted six races, winning four of them, and obtaining a 

 record of 2 m. 28 1 s. The next year he was kept busily at work. 

 He commenced the season at Grand Rapids, Mich., June 9, where 

 Mollie Morris beat him. Gen. Grant and Molsey being also in the race. 

 On the 17th Lady Mac beat him at South Bend, Indiana. On July 

 7, at Detroit, Grafton defeated him in straight heats. Two weeks 

 later, at Sandusky, the entrees for the Grand Circuit having closed, 

 he was allowed to go to the front, and scored his first win, beating 

 a field of three in slow time. He then entered the Grand Circuit in 

 the 2 m. 27 s. class at Cleveland, July 30, winning a red-hot race 

 from the little Mollie Morris (who won the first two heats), Carrie 

 (who took the third), and four others, in 2 m. 23 J s., 2 m. 25 J s., 

 2 m. 24 J- s., 2 m. 24^ s._, 2 m. 23J s., 2 m. 26^ s.; but at Buffalo, 

 the following week, Mollie Morris reversed the verdict, beating him 

 in three straight heats. At Rochester, Utica, and Hartford he won 

 easily, reducing his record to 2 m. 20f s. After this he trotted six 

 races, but seemed to be somewhat off, winning but two of them, 

 being beaten by Lady Maud twice, and by Kansas Chief and Sensa- 

 tion each once. In 1876 he had his own way in the 2 m. 20 s. 

 class of the Septilateral Circuit, excepting at Cleveland, where May 

 Queen beat him, winning the six remaining races in the easiest 

 manner, without reducing his record, though it was evident he 

 could trot low down in the " teens" whenever he chose to do so, and 

 at Fleetwood Park, N. Y., October 26, he won a fast race, trotting 

 the fillh heat in 2 m. 20 s., and closed the season with this record 

 against him. Late in the fall he was taken to California, and his 

 first races in 1877 were against the peerless Goldsmith Maid, who 



