330 LIFE WITH THE TROTTERS. 



known to be worth all the trouble taken with him, if only- 

 he could be made to obey the will of his trainer. And if 

 Hickok had never trained or driven another horse my ver- 

 dict would always have been that he was a first-class horse- 

 man. In training your horse, dont give him the best of it 

 all the time; try him in every jDOsition you think he might 

 be placed in during an actual race. Try and teach him at 

 all times to let you do all the driving. If he is afraid of 

 the runner and tries to rush away, bring the runner to him 

 carefully. The only thing I ever saw in the shape of a horse 

 that Rarus was afraid of was a runner. Hickok told me that 

 St. Julien was the same, and for that reason Orrin always 

 worked him mth a pacer. If your horse is iDarticularly 

 i-ank work him alone until you get the wire -edge off him, 

 then take your jDrompter and show him that he is not going 

 to be hurt. 



Never try to do anything with a horse by main strength 

 and ignorance. You can not make a good hack-horse in 

 that way, let alone a race-horse. In training horses never 

 try to do too much. I have heard men talk about training- 

 twenty horses, but that seems impossible to me. The minute 

 a man overworks himself he will get nervous, cross and irri- 

 table, and neglect some vital point and thereby lose his 

 money some day. In training a horse a man Las to use his 

 brains as well as his hands, and he had better train one 

 horse w^ell and have i^lenty of time to lay out his campaign, 

 than to train a large stable poorly, leave the door open 

 some day, and let the boys get in on him. After you have 

 given the horse his preparatory work and his body, legs and 

 wind are in condition to move him along faster, hitch him 

 to your sulky. I think that in this matter it is well to have 

 two weights of sulkies, one to work a horse to, and one to 

 trot him races in. Every driver has his own ideas about 

 which is the best sulky. I myself have no delicacy in stat- 

 ing that I think S. Toomey & Co., of Canal Dover, Ohio, 

 make the best sulkies I ever saw. They sit the best, wear 

 the best, and it is almost impossible to hook a horse to one 



