Tm: TROTTING-IIORSE Gi AMERICA. 3t) 



1 am going to produce is only calculated to be useful when 

 used as a stepping-stone to experience, I do not really under- 

 value it, as some may think. Besides, I intend to make it 

 interesting to the general reiidcr, as well as to him who is 

 in quest of the rules and maxims of the trainer's art. I 

 also wish it to be understood at the outset, that very many 

 clever horsemen will differ w^ith me in regard to some of the 

 things I shall lay down as proper to be pursued. I know it 

 will be very often said by some of my associates of years 

 gone by, as they read these pages, " ' Old Blocks ' is wrong 

 in regard to so-and-so;" but I can assure the reader that I 

 shall recoi amend nothing but what I have tried, and in a 

 measure proved m3'self. 



It is more than thirty years since I began to handle trot- 

 ting-horses, and more than five-and-twcnty since I had 

 charge of Dutchman, the best, take him for ali in all, of the 

 old-time trotters. Some things are done differently now frora 

 what they were then ; j^et there has not been any great 

 cliange in the method we tlicn pursued, nor has there been, 

 in my opinion, as much change and improvement in our 

 horses as some imagine. It is true that there are nwre fast 

 trotters now than there ever were before, that the best time 

 has been much cut down of late years, and that the driving 

 on the road is a deal more rapid now than it was then. But 

 then it is to be remembered that the tracks are now much 

 better ordered than they were in former times, that the 

 vehicles for trotting have been much lightened and improved, 

 and that a corresponding improvement in roads and road- 

 wagons has taken place. Besides, there are hundreds of 

 liorses trained nowadays to one that was handled by a really 

 competent man then ; and thus a greater amount of speed 

 is developed in the multitude. And though it is not alto- 

 gether clear why it should be so, there is no doubt in my 

 mind about this, viz., that, as the excellence of the multitude 

 increases, the, excellence of the best among them will reach 

 a higher standard. Except in exceptional cases, it is easiea 



