8 LIFE WITH TIIK TKOTTEKS. 



gray mare belonging to Mr. Henry C. Jewett, who has since 

 then become well known as one of the leading breeders of the 

 country, and we went a mile in about three minutes. I felt 

 very i^roud of my work, as Mr. Stevenson told me that I had 

 performed as well as he could have done himself. Mr. 

 Stevenson, probably in order to keep a watchful eye on my 

 young efforts, gave me the pole and laid on my Mdieel with 

 the gray mare during the trip, advising me at different 

 parts of the mile what to do, and telling me about how well we 

 were going. If he had not told me it was three minutes I 

 would have thought it was two, which fact will give an 

 idea of how little I knew at that time about different rates 

 of speed, and it also goes to show liow exhilarated a man 

 can become behind a trotter. 



I spent that season in Mr. Stevenson' s employ ; and 

 another horse that I sometimes trained was Byron, a chest- 

 nut stallion by Royal George, that afterward made a record 

 of 2:2o|-, and has since sired a number of 2:30 horses, as 

 well as the dam of the famous filly Susie S., that trotted 

 such a grand race at St. Louis in 1887, winning the fourth 

 heat in 2:20, and stam23ing herself as the best three-year-old 

 out that season. Byron was bred in Canada, and was 

 brought to Buffalo by a livery-stable keeper named Effner, 

 who in those days managed to get hold of about all the 

 good horses that came>to the town for sale. He saw that 

 Byron had some sjjeed, and it was not long before he sold 

 him to Frank Perew, then as now a solid citizen of Buffalo 

 and iDrominent in marine circles, and who has always been 

 a great admirer of trotters. It was just after Mr. Perew had 

 bought Byron that the stallion was sent to Mr. Stevenson's 

 stable, and in that way came under my observation. 



The first dollar I ever earned for driving a trotter was 

 with this horse. One day Mr. Perew came out with a friend 

 to see Byron, and in the course of some talk he offered to 

 bet five dollars that I could drive him a mile in 2:40. The 

 bet Avas made, and I went out with the horse and drove him 

 a mile in 2:38|. Mr. Perew made me a present of the ten 



