LIFE WITH THE TROTTERS. 117 



the jiidges said ''go," Rurus went away from the wire as 

 though he intended to trot a mile in two m mutes. At the 

 quarter pole, the old runner took to the bushes and bolted. 

 As soon as his company was gone, Rarus wanted to slack 

 up; I kept him steady, however, and when we turned into 

 the home stretch, I found waiting for me on his celebrated 

 gray horse, that noted character, William Potts, at that 

 time marshal of the Cleveland track. I called to him to come 

 on with his horse, but Potts did not get the gray going quick 

 enough, and was unable to reach me. When I went under 

 the wire, I guessed that something unusual had happened, 

 as I never heard such cheering before in my life. When I 

 got back to the stand, the iirst man I happened to meet was 

 my friend who liad bet his two thousand dollars. He says 

 to me, with a peculiar look on his face, "We are murdered; 

 you went the mile in 2:13| ! '' The time that the outsiders, 

 I found, had made it to a man. In the judges' stand there 

 was a disagreement, two watches making it 2:14, and one 

 2:13|. They hung it out 2:14, and my friend won his 

 money; but he told me quietly, that night, that he would 

 never bet that much again that Rarus would not trot in 

 2:14, whenever I was willing to try with him. Tliis race 

 not only proved that Rarus was the sujDerior of every 

 horse then on the turf, but that he had, in one race, 

 equaled the best record of Goldsmith Maid, and gone 

 three of the fastest consecutive heats ever trotted or paced 

 by any horse, and everyone who saw him make the per- 

 formance felt sure that he could beat 2:14. 



The following week we went to Buffalo, and under a special 

 arrangement were billed to try and beat 2: 14, and here I want 

 say that I made a very serious mistake in the start. Rarus 

 was a horse that had always gone with a very light shoe, 

 and I knew could always go better over a track not too hard, 

 but, as I suppose many a man has done before, I allowed 

 myself to be advised as to the condition of the track, and 

 the superintendent had it made harder than I had ever seen 

 it. The soil of the Buffalo track at this time "was just lit for 



