168 LIFE WITH THE TROTTEKS, 



that I induced my friend, C. F. Emory to buy her. He did 

 so, thinking she would be useful as a race horse, and that 

 when her career on the turf was finished he would like to 

 have her for a brood mare. I think the result has proved 

 that his judgment M^as wise in the matter, as, after he owned 

 her, she beat more horses than ever beat her, and her career 

 in the stud promises to eclipse her turf career. She was a 

 mare fifteen hands one and one-half inches high, a chestnut 

 with four white legs, white face, and I can't remember now, 

 in all my career, a handsomer or more blood-like animal than 

 Mattie. She was the universal favorite of all the women 

 and children. In motion she was grace itself, her gait being- 

 perfect, and her disi)osition the finest. She was a fast 

 scorer, and a good finisher, two things that are hard to beat 

 in a race horse. 



In the summer of 1879, Sleepy Tom electrified the coun- 

 try by his wonderful pacing performance, having beaten all 

 previous trotting and joacing records in Chicago that year. 

 At Rochester Mr. Pate asked me to drive Mattie Hunter, 

 saying that he thought she had a chance to beat Sleepy 

 Tom, a statement that I was hardly prepared to believe; but 

 the result proved that in Mattie Hunter Mr. Pate had a 

 great mare that day, as she forced Sleepy Tom to go the 

 best race that has ever been paced. I laid Mattie up in the 

 first heat, which Rowdy Boy won in 2:18f, giving every- 

 body a surprise, as no one expected him to go at that rate. 

 The second heat Sleepy Tom won in 2:16|^, Mattie Hunter 

 again just dropping inside the distance flag. In the third 

 heat we went out for a battle, and Hunter beat Tom in 2:15. 

 She beat him the fourth heat in 2:15^. The fifth heat he 

 defeated her, after one of the most desperate finishes I ever 

 saw, in 2:13^. In the sixth heat they fought every inch of 

 the road from start to finish, the others being out of the 

 race, and Tom beat Mattie the shortest kind of a head in 

 2:14, thus winning the fastest race of the number of heats 

 ever paced or trotted in one day, the average being 2:14f for 

 the six heats. 



