LIFE WITH THE TROTTERS. 137 



furnished for any liorse after lie had become useless as a 

 turf horse, and when I learned that the sale to Mr. Sim- 

 mons was in the interest of Mr. Robert Bonner all the anxi- 

 ety and perturbation of spirit that had naturally resulted 

 from the sale vanished as if by magic, for I knew that in 

 Mr. Bonner, Rarus had acquired an owner whose fame as 

 the purchaser of the fastest trotters in the world was ac- 

 companied by the knowledge that every horse belonging to 

 him received during his lifetime as good care as could be 

 given any human being. I knew that as long as Rarus 

 might live it would always be his portion to receive from 

 experienced grooms every attention that was necessary for 

 his well-being and comfort. I knew that the bodily ail- 

 ments that were to come Avith increasing age would be at- 

 tended to in the most skillful manner, and that under no 

 circumstance would he be x^^^rted with, for it is a rule of 

 Mr. Bonner's life that no one of the famous horses that he 

 owns shall be sold; and the history of Dexter, Pocahontas, 

 and the two old mares — about the first fast pair that Mr. 

 Bonner ever owned, Lady Palmer and Flatbush Maid — had 

 told this to the world. Not alone where the English lan- 

 guage is s^Doken or written, but wherever the blooded 

 liorse is an object of interest, the name of Robert Bonner is 

 a familiar one, and a book of this kind would be imcomplete 

 without more than incidental reference to him, since no 

 other name is so intimately and x>rominently associated 

 with the American trotter as his. A man of rare intellect- 

 ual attainments and business ability, which is demonstrated 

 by the accumulation of a large fortune obtained in a strictly 

 legitimate manner, with a mind that probes to its utter- 

 most depths any subject worth taking under consideration, 

 Mr. Bonner has given to trotting horses more mental effort 

 than any other man in the world. 



Beginning thirty years ago, he purchased his first trot- 

 ter, an animal that could step in about three mijiutes, in 

 obedience to the directions of his physician, who advised 

 him to try driving for his health. From that day to this, 



