306 LIFE WITH THE TROTTEKS. 



owners trust an ignorant man with a $15,000 horse where 

 they would not trust the same man with a ten- dollar bill. 

 Few people realizehow important apart the rubber occupies 

 in training a horse, or how many hours he has to be on duty. 

 In the actual training season the rubber does not have one 

 moment that he can call his own. A man that works by the 

 day at ordinary labor puts in eight or ten hours, the balance 

 of the twenty-four hours is his own. Not so mtli the rubber; 

 he is on duty the whole of the twenty -four hours, sometimes 

 having bareh^ time to eat his meals. People say: "What 

 has he to do all that time? " His duties are to take care of 

 his horse, stable, harness, boots, blankets, sulky, whips and 

 a thousand and one things that a man needs in training a 

 horse. Then when the night comes, instead of going off and 

 having a good time with the boys, he has to stay in the 

 stable and sleep in the stall with his horse for fear of fire 

 and other accidents which might hapi^en if the horse was 

 left alone. I think such men as "Old Charlie," who took 

 care of Goldsmith Maid; "Lucy Jimmy"; Little Dave, who 

 took care of Earns and Johnston for me; Bill, the rubber of 

 St. Julien, and a number of other men whom I could name, 

 deserve as much credit for the success of the horses they 

 cared for as the men who drove them. No one realized this 

 fact more than Mace; he took better care of his rubbers, 

 gave them better wages and was kinder to his men than any 

 other trainer that I ever saw. 



The next thing in order is the tools to train your horse 

 with. Here again the trainer wants to be more than careful. 

 Do not fill your stable uj) with worthless traps that you have 

 no use for, as the care of them will only take time and 

 trouble. In regard to blankets, I often think they are a 

 nuisance; not but that I think a horse wants a reasonable 

 amount of clothing, but I have seen horses in the hottest 

 part of the year with blankets enough on them to make them 

 uncomfortable in winter. I have seen the same horse in 

 winter turned out in the coldest weather with nothing to 

 protect him except his coat of hair — that' s what I call the 



