LIFE WITH THE TROTTERS. 223 



day what liorse to breed a mare to, and giving liim her pedi- 

 gree, he advised me to send her to Kentucky Prince. I was 

 ra'.her surprised, as at that time I liad not heard much of 

 Kentucky Prince. He belonged at this time to a gentleman 

 who bred more for his own amusement than for public 

 patronage. Nothing much Avas ever done in the way of 

 advertising Kentucky Piince, and for that reason he was 

 partially overlooked. I knew that Colonel West must have 

 some very good reasons for advising me to breed to the 

 horse, and asked him to state them. His first reason was 

 that his breeding was good; then he said that as an individ- 

 ual horse Kentucky Prince was simjjly perfect. He then 

 went on to explain to me in his genial mannei' how he had 

 received a letter from a man down in Bourbon County 

 of Kentucky, telling him that the writer had a wonderful 

 stallion that he would like to sell. The letter made such an 

 Impression on Colonel West that one day he took his team, 

 and his trainer and friend, Geo. Brastield (a man w'ho, though 

 now retired from the turf, has handled many famous trot- 

 ters in their babyhood, among them Director, Jay-Eye-See, 

 and Santa Claus), and started for t he farm of the man who 

 had written. He said that when they arrived at the fami 

 they found the best crop of weeds, and the poorest cattle, 

 he had met in a long time — in fact the whole county had an 

 aspect of going to seed. On inquiry for his man Colonel 

 West was told that he had gone down to the bottom-lands 

 to drive ujd the cows. He asked about the horse, and an old 

 darky said they had such a horse, but the farmer had rid- 

 den him after the cows. He said while waiting for the fann- 

 er"' s return he interviewed the colored i)erson on the subject 

 of trotters in general, and this horse in X'^irticidar, and his 

 ideas about a trotting horse were something wonderful. He 

 finally volunteered to show the Colonel the track on which 

 this trotting horse was trained the days that the fai-mer did 

 not have to ride him after tlie cows, and as the Colonel had 

 nothing else to do he bethought himself to pace off the track, 

 and see wliethcr it \\ as half a mile or not, which he did, and 



