208 THE TBOTTING-nonSE OF AMERICA 



time was come. The little mare made such a fine rush that 

 she was at the head of Princess at the half-mile pole. She 

 took the lead, and won with great ease by five lengths, in 

 7m. 54s.; amidst great shouting. 



Ten to one was now laid; and it was whispered about that 

 Eoff would not let Princess win it. He very likely insti- 

 gated the report himself; for it was a part of his tactics to 

 make people believe that Princess could beat Flora, when- 

 ever it became his interest to let her do so. In the second 

 heat, Flora took the lead. The first mile was 2.37^., the 

 second 2.36^. In the third mile. Flora began to come back ; 

 and she pulled a shoe oif, and cut her quarter. Half-way 

 up the stretch. Flora broke and many believed that Eoff 

 might then have passed her, and won the heat, if he had 

 wanted to do so. Flora was in a hobble all the way home, 

 and broke three times after she passed the di-awgate ; but 

 Princess never got to her, and the little mare won it in 7m. 

 59^s. About nineteen out of twenty people believed that 

 Eoff pulled Princess in the last heat, on purpose to lose it. 

 But, if he had a mare that could have beaten Flora, the odda 

 that day were very tempting. He told a plausible, and I am 

 inclined to think a truthful, story. It was, that Princess 

 was as tired as Flora was ; that, if he had sent her ever so 

 little at the finish, she would have broken up ; and, as she is 

 a bad breaker, that would have lost it. The truth, to my 

 nnnd, is, that Princess never could beat Flora when the lat- 

 ter was at all herself; and Eoff was, of all the men in America, 

 the man who knew it best. Flora, however, was not at her 

 best that day. 



The charges against Eoff for pulling and losii g, when he 

 could have won, were so loud and general, that there was an 

 investigation by the Union Jockey Club. Eoff appeared^ 

 and made his statement ; but of all those who had declared, 

 that, if the reins had broken. Princess could not have lost 

 it, not one came forward to substantiate the charge. The 

 after-experience o*" Princcws and Flora showed that the 



