LIFE WITH THE TROTTEES. 415 



would seemingly ca' culate the chances of getting to the wire 

 on even terms or ahead, of them, and if she concluded that 

 they would have the best of it there was no use of my try- 

 ing to get her there first, because she simply would not go. 

 I do not mean to say that she would stop, or anything of 

 tliat sort, but slie wouhl not get into her best rate of speed, 

 nor would she try to do so, and the result would be that 

 the judges, seeing that tlie start would be an unfair one, 

 would ring the recall bell. On the contrary, if she had a 

 good chance to beat the other horses in scoring she would 

 go along gradually with them until pretty close to the wire 

 and then of her own accord come with a terrible rush of 

 speed so that when the word was given she would almost 

 invariably be going the best clip of any horse of the x^arty. 

 Once the word was given she knew it as well as any of the 

 drivers and there was no trouble with her from that time on 

 so far as her behavior was concerned. If she had the pole 

 she would make it a point to see that no horse beat her 

 around the first turn, seeming to be perfectly well aware 

 that the animal that trotted on the outside had a good deal 

 the worst of it, and she had no intention of losing her posi- 

 tion next the rail unless she was fairly out-trotted. 



And now in regard to Goldsmith Maid's habit of occa- 

 sionally making a short break while trotting a hear. A 

 good many people who of course had not given the matter 

 close attention imagined that she gained by these breaks 

 and this idea became prevalent with tlie xnd)lic. Of course 

 it came about from the evident fact that after making a 

 break the Maid could catch again without losing any 

 ground, and this was as far as people looked at the matter. 

 It is true that she was a very handy catchei-, and perhaps 

 did not lose anything in point of position b}^ her breaks, 

 but she did lose very materially by not being able to get 

 into her stride again at once, and to show that this is the 

 case I have only to say that wlien she trotted, on three dif- 

 ferent occasions, a mile for me in 2: 14, and another time in 

 2:14^, slie never made a break in either mile and in none of 



