404 LIFE WITH THE TROTTEES. 



quarter stretch in front of the grand stand said to me: 

 ' ' You stay here until I find the man Vv'ho owns Dexter. ' ' 

 In a little while he came with George Trussell and said to him: 

 "Here is a young man that I can recommend." That night 

 I arranged with Mr. Trussell to take temporary charge of 

 Dexter and drive him in his race at Suffolk Park against 

 George M. Patchen, Jr., of California, that event being fixed 

 for the 9th of July, and also to ride him a week later in a 

 race at the Fashion track against General Butler and To- 

 ronto Chief. Mr. Trussell said that he would send the horse 

 to me at Philadelphia the following day and with this un- 

 derstanding I started for home. 



It was only after boarding the railroad train that I fully 

 realized the experience I had gone through with during the 

 afternoon, and my first conclusion was that I had made a 

 big mistake. I reasoned that for a boy like me to take such 

 a noted horse as Dexter from the hands of Hiram Woodruff, 

 the foremost trainer and driver in the country, was assum- 

 ing too much, and all that night I could not get this notion 

 out of my head. The following day passed. Dexter did not 

 come, and I felt immensely relieved, but that nighc I re- 

 ceived word that the delay was caused by the fact that Mr. 

 Trussell did not like to send the horse through the streets 

 of New York on the Fourth of July, and that he would 

 reach my stable the following morning, which he did. Of 

 course I had been able to think of little else, and after 

 learning that Dexter was surely coming to me, I began to 

 retiect about his management. The more I pondered over 

 the matter the more it seemed certain to me that he Avas 

 not in need of much training. I knew that he had been 

 given plenty of work, and the five-heat race that week had 

 certainly supplied any possible deficiency in that direction, 

 so that my notion was that the best i)lan to pursue w^ould 

 be to give the horse as little work as X)ossible, devoting all 

 my energies to getting him free from soreness and toning 

 himux) generally for the race that was to come. 



Naturally enough all this responsibility made me anx- 



