260 LIFE WITH THE TROTTERS. 



with him. Have them thoroughly conditioned, he said, 

 and they always prove themselves race- horses. The result 

 of my observations was that Hickok was right. Speaking 

 of the difference in horses, there is also a very great differ- 

 ence in drivers. Take a dozen of the best reinsmen, and 

 they vary greatly in disposition, looks, build and in their 

 general system of driving and training horses, Hickok I 

 have known for years. His forte, I think, is determination. 

 In training a horse he pays more attention to having the 

 horse thoroughly bitted and educating the mouth than any 

 man I ever saw. After Hickok has had a horse a reasonable 

 length of time you will see one that makes very few mis- 

 takes of any kind and is generally very easy to drive. He 

 has had some ups and downs in his life, always been a bold 

 operator on the turf and elsewhere, is a shrewd business 

 man, and perhaps has owned an interest in more first-class 

 horses than any other man in this country. To appreciate 

 Hickok you have to know him well. If he is your friend 

 you can rest assured of one thing, that he will never leave 

 you in the storm. If he goes in out of the wet he will take 

 you with him. 



The Goldsmith boys, Johnny and Jim, and the Volun- 

 teer family of trotters are the most distinct example of 

 breeding that I ever saw. The boys came honestly by their 

 horsemanship as their father was a horseman all his lifetime. 

 The old gentleman was a distinctive character in his way 

 and one that would have made his mark in any walk in life 

 in which he might have been j)laced. When I first knew 

 him thirty years ago he was an extremely handsome man, 

 very affable in manner, always dressed well, and his lan- 

 guage at all times was good. At that time a man who 

 owned a trotter and trotted him for money was looked upon, 

 to say the least, with a little suspicion. That is, it was not 

 considered anything to be iDarticularly proud of, but Mr. 

 Goldsmith like the intelligent man that he was, could see 

 nothing in the owning of a first-class horse that was low or 

 degrading and so expressed himself. He lived long enough 



