330 LIFE WITH THE TROTTERS. 



ignorance. I never saw a man that could go in a heat and 

 drive against eight or ten people, handle his own horse well 

 and come back and tell you what all the others were doing 

 better than Mace could. He also had a way of making 

 everyone believe he was driving all he could sometimes 

 when such was not the case. In that way he found out a 

 great deal about the other horses and kept their drivers in 

 the dark about his own. 



There is one thing a driver should always remember, 

 and that is that in driving a horse his first duty is to the 

 owner and his interests. After driving a heat if you have 

 any information that you think he would like to know let 

 him be the first to know it, and from you. In that way you 

 relieve yourself of a good deal of unnecessary responsibility 

 at certain times. After the heat is over take personal 

 charge of cooling out your horse. If you want any infor- 

 mation as regards the betting or anything else that may 

 arise get someone else to do all that for you and give your 

 undivided attention to the horse, as I consider this one of 

 the vital parts of success in racing. Not only see that 

 your horse is properly cared for but also that your harness 

 and boots are properly cleaned, as in that way you may 

 often prevent a horse from being chafed and sore. The old- 

 fashioned method of rubbing a horse severely between heats 

 is entirely out of date. Never allow a man to rub a horse in 

 a severe manner, as that hurts the horse more than you can 

 imagine. It will make his skin so sore that he will want to 

 fight if you look at him, and the time that he should be 

 resting he will spend in kicking and iighting the boy. The 

 better plan is to rub him but very little and then with soft 

 cloths. Use just as few blankets as possible. I could 

 never see any reason why a horse after trotting a severe 

 heat should be loaded down with heavy blankets and com- 

 pelled to perspire in a manner that will certainly make him 

 weak and dull. If you trot a horse five or six heats in one 

 afternoon and force him to sweat very freely every time 

 you will have him very much weakened by night. If your 



