354 LIFE Vv'ITH THE TKOTTEES. 



2: 30. He seemed very much unbalanced going down the hill. 

 Before the word was given in the third heat, I increased the 

 weight on him by putting on a six-ounce toe- weight instead 

 of a four-ounce. This seemed to steady him, and while my 

 friend McMann gave me a pretty hard race in the next heat, 

 Calmar beat the mare and then j)ut the race to his credit. 

 I made a fair winning, and Calmar proved to me that he 

 would certainly be of benefit in tiding over the long winter 

 before us, 



I went from New York to Cleveland where I had Calmar 

 entered in two races. When I arrived there and told Mr. 

 Baker about Calmar's success at Fleetwood, he did not 

 enthuse much about him as the time had been slow, and he 

 thought his winning the race was more of a scratch than a 

 Ijroof of merit. Mr. Baker was a man who if you gave him 

 a good deal of encouragement was apt to overbet every- 

 thing. The night before Calmar' s race at Cleveland, I told 

 him I thought I had a chance to win, and that we had bet- 

 ter have some money on him. I do not know what kind of 

 an order Mr. Baker gave Dempsey the pool-seller, but it 

 must have been unlimited for he played it from the green 

 cloth to the blue sky, as Jack Batcheldor says. The race 

 came off and Calmar won in straight heats lowering his 

 record, and thereby winning the money for us. In this race 

 he had two or three seconds to sjoare in each Leat, but I 

 kept him well in hand and only won at the finish, and I 

 think the x)ublic did not realize we had anything more than 

 I showed. Two days afterward we started in another race 

 over the same track in a field of horses where it was known 

 we would have to trot in 2:23 or 2:24 to win. A'srain I sue:- 



O CD 



gested to Mr. Baker he had better back his horse, and also 

 cautioned him that he was in with the best field he had 

 ever struck and he had a chance of being beaten. The last 

 part of my advice I hardly think Mr. Baker took as between 

 himself and his partner, Ira Holmes of Chicago, they bet 

 about all the money that was on Calmar. The race came 

 off and Calmar won in three heats easily, trotting the last 



