432 LIFE WITH THE TKOTTERS, 



often, giving liim sharp, quick work and not too much of 

 it. Take Just as good care of him as any trotter that can 

 beat 2:30. If he is warm walk him out slowly, have his 

 legs bandaged, and if he is very heavy coated, have him 

 clipi^ed. In the afternoon give him an hour s run in the 

 grass paddock, or if it is not convenient to do this have 

 him led out at grass with a short evening walk. 



Keep this up for a month, and don't let anyone know 

 how fast he is going, not even the grooms about the stable, 

 and there will be an air of mysteriousness about it that will 

 astonish the natives. The nods and sly winks will be many. 

 Privately XJerhaps you may think the colt is not as promising 

 as you at first imagined, and you really do not like to tell that 

 he could only go a quarter in fifty-five seconds, when you 

 have been talking about a two-forty gait all winter, and 

 telling that the leading horse could not run fast enough to 

 keei^ up with him. Well, you are excusable ; there is no 

 telling what may be said in the winter about speed, and 

 2:10 is a very common clip around the stove. If your colt 

 can trot a quarter the first month's handling in fiftj^-five 

 seconds he is a fair stepper but not fast. You must recol- 

 lect it is now only one month that you have been handling 

 him in harness, and a good many wet days have intervened 

 when you could not brush him along, and probably he has 

 not yet come to the same speed that he showed you in the 

 leading shed. Tlie fact is he is not quite up to the game. 

 The run through April, the not very regular work through 

 the dreamy month of May, brings j^ou to the first of June 

 guessing about tlie August races. You also have been 

 drivina: older horses with fast records that whirl off their 

 quarters in thirty-five seconds, and colt training is tame 

 business. 



I am afraid you are getting impatient all for nothing, 

 and it requires patience to train colts. The first week in 

 June. The sporting pax>ers have come; you run them over 

 for news, especially colt items. The regular old stereotyped 

 item is there fished up for use again— had been thrown in the 



