80 LIFE WITH THE TROTTERS. 



result of this was that, beside Rarus, there was also entered 

 Great Eastern, who had been a winner in his class through the 

 circuit, making a record of 2:18. This horse was the largest 

 trotter I ever saAv, standing over seventeen hands high, and 

 had been very successful that year under the management 

 of Jack Feek. Judge Fullerton was also in, as I have 

 stated, and appeared for the first time with John Murphy 

 behind him. Then came Lucille Golddust, who had always 

 proved herself a first-class performer in any com^^any. She 

 had been trotting third to Goldsmith Maid and Smuggler 

 through the circuit, beating 2:20 two or three seconds every 

 heat. The great stallion Smuggler, with his record of 

 2:15J, made only a few weeks before, was also one of the 

 starters, and Frank Reeves, who was a little out of his ele- 

 ment, completed the field. When Mr. Conklin saw that I 

 had Rarus in this race he seemed quite x^leased to think I 

 would give uj) Fullerton, as fast a horse as i^eople supposed 

 he was, to keeiD his horse and trot him, and asked me how 

 I came to do it. I told him I considered Rarus much the 

 better horse of the two, and that I thought he would beat 

 Fullerton easily. He asked me what I figured from. F'ul- 

 lerton had a record of 2:18, and had shown miles much 

 better — was, in fact, considered a dangerous competitor for 

 any trotter excej^t Goldsmith Maid. I told Mr. Conklin. 

 that I could have driven Rarus in 2:20 over the half-mile 

 track at Cincinnati, and I did not think Fullerton had ever 

 seen the day he could have done that. After our return 

 from Cincinnati we had a week before the Fleetwood race, 

 and I gave Rarus very light work, the best mile being 2:25^. 

 I stepped him down the hill a way as fast as he could go 

 in this mile, to see what he would do on the down grade, 

 and noticed that ho wanted to break, and acted as though 

 he was not properly balanced. In the last half of the mile 

 1 sent him up the hill fast, and this grade also bothered 

 him. There was a reverse turn right in the sharpest i^art 

 of the hill, and that seemed to annoy him, but I never saw 

 him when he appeared to have more brush in the stretch. 



