352 LIFE vriTn the teotteks. 



lame horse. I had the idea strengthened in me by seeing 

 Mr. Robert Bonner shoe his horses in the same manner. 

 We«3.ecided that in jAnce of putting all the weight in shoe 

 on his forward feet we would put a light shoe on him and 

 toe- weights. Calmar wore at this time a sixteen-ounce shoe. 

 We made a ten-ounce shoe with a spur to carry the weight, 

 after a pattern that Andy Porter, the j)opular blacksmith 

 of Chicago had once made for me, which was to have the 

 spur long enough to reach up to the top of the horse's hoof; 

 then have your weight fixed with a set-screw so that you 

 could raise and lower it on the horse's foot at any point you 

 like. 



I found that Calmar' s mouth was a good deal of trouble 

 to him; he seemed dreadfully afraid of the bit, and was the 

 first horse I ever drove with a nose-band. In some of my 

 Western trips I had seen the Mexicans ride their horses 

 without bits and with the bridle arranged across the nose. 

 This gave me the notion of trying it on Calmar. I took off 

 his over-check, put on a side-check, arranged the nose-band 

 so that I could buckle my reins into the nose-band and bits 

 at the same time and so that a good deal of the pressure 

 would come on the nose when I took hold of them. The 

 first day I arranged to work him in this way, George the 

 blacksmith came out to see the effect the shoeing would 

 have on him. I drove him the first mile in 2:35, and while 

 he did not break he seemed very uneasy and acted very 

 much as though he wanted to. In twenty minutes I drove 

 him another mile in 2:30, which he went without a break. 

 Before putting his boots on I had them rubbed over with 

 chalk so I could see just where he brushed them. I found 

 that he marked the shin boots a little above the ankle and 

 did not brush the scalpers a.t all, We decided that the next 

 time we worked him we would raise the weights higher 

 on the spur, which we did and I drove him several heats in 

 about 2:30, without a break or without his showing any dis- 

 position to want to break. 



The following week at Hartford, where I had him 



