58 PHILOSOPUY OF TROTTING. 



St. Leger, that was pronounced singly the fastest three-year-old ever 

 trained by a veteran turfman ; but in a race she "was so excitable and 

 hot-headed as to be utterly worthless. High temjjer is a fault very 

 difficult to overcome, and at all times a serious obstacle to success in a 

 trotter. 



This trait expressed by the terra temperament is one that has very 

 intimate relations to the quality of speed, but in such connection it 

 must be taken as expressive of nerve force, or the capacity for a high 

 state of nervous vigor and action. A horse or a mare may possess a 

 slow and dull temperament — may be incapable of a display of great 

 or intense nervous vigor — he may be excitable and restive, and yet 

 lacking in the extreme in nerve power. On the other hand, he may, 

 like Gov. Sprague, be calm and placid in disposition, but when roused 

 or called upon be capable of displaying a force and enduring energy 

 that can only come from a nervous system organized for the most 

 powerful and demonstrative tension. In this lies the embodiment of 

 speed. It is for such an organism that we go to the highly -bred horse 

 of any and all breeds. The low or the ill-bred mongrel can not be 

 expected to display any such qualities. There is another quality of 

 mind, that may be classed within the term temperament, that is equally 

 important; it is that of courage, and serene confidence in the presence 

 of danger, or that which to animal minds seems to thieaten danger. 

 A scary or foolish horse can never be valuable for trotting purposes, 

 although of the most perfect form, and capable of the highest flights 

 of speed. Such a family trait was found in the descendants of Alex- 

 ander's Edwin Forrest. They were naturally flighty, and the trait 

 was deeply seated. Lilly Simpson was a fast trotter, but foolish and 

 flighty; and her full brother was the worst I ever knew. The courage 

 and docility of the descendants of Justin Morgan are proverbial, and 

 form a large element in the character of that family, that gave them 

 for so long a time a widespread popularity. 



That other mental trait, designated by the term " pluck," which 

 signifies high courage coupled with tenacity of will, and resolute, 

 unflinching determination, is the golden trait that should be found in 

 every great trotter — the quality that always has a link to let out in the 

 extreme and vital emergency of every contest — that goes for the 

 death; and in the very jaws of defeat knows no such thing as despair, 

 but is ready to summon power never before called out, and snatch 

 victory in the very crisis of disaster. Such was the quality that car- 

 ried Black Maria through her twenty-mile contest, that carried the 



