180 LIFE WITH THE TEOTTEES. 



liow hard I might have tried in the first part of the race, 

 he woukl not have won a heat, and, I believe, would have 

 hurt his chances of winning the race. 



The following week we went to Buffalo, and the same 

 field of horses had a fight that would do credit to any field 

 of trotters now. In the betting Wedgewood sold even 

 against the field, and from what I saw about the pool-boxes 

 before we started I made up my mind that my opi^onents 

 were there to give me a battle royal, and the result proved 

 that I did not make any mistake. The only error they did 

 make was that instead of ' ' bunching their hits' ' as they 

 say in the jorize-ring, they sparred with each other while I 

 laid up, and at the finish they fell victims to A¥edgewood's 

 gameness and speed. Kitty Bates won the first heat in 2:19, 

 knocking several seconds off her record, and in the second 

 heat that world-renowned campaigner Deck Wright made 

 his star performance, winning in 2:19|, which is his record 

 to this day. The third heat Kentucky Wilkes w^oii in 2: 21 J, 

 which is also his best mark. In these three heats I had not 

 made a move, but when they scored for the fourth Wedge- 

 wood and myself had on the war paint, and we needed it, 

 as Kentucky Wilkes gave us such a fight that from that day 

 to this he has been always borne in my mind as not only 

 one of the best sons of that greatest of all sires Geo. 

 Wilkes, but I believe the gamest AYilkes that I ever saw. 

 Wedgewood and Wilkes fought the heat from start to 

 finish, both horses being driven for all they were worth, 

 and at no time in the heat was there daylight between them. 

 Wilkes broke in the last twenty -five yards, and Wedge- 

 wood beat him to the stand in 2:21|^. I made wp my mind 

 that this would about finish Wilkes for that day, as he had 

 gone four heats and had been first or second in every one, 

 but I counted wrong. When they said " go " in the fifth 

 heat he immediately moved up to the front, out-trotted 

 Wedgewood to the half-mile pole about a length, and from 

 there to the judges' stand they fought out another desperate 

 finish in which AVedgewood beat him in 2:20. 



