28 TRAINING THE TROTTING HORSE. 



CHAPTEK I. 



WHY THE BOOK IS WRITTEN — A PROFESSION WITHOUT 

 TEACHERS OR TEXT-BOOKS — OUR SYSTEM OF TRAINING 

 ORIGINAL ORDER OF THE WORK EARLY EXPERI- 

 ENCES W^ITH HORSES MY FIRST TROTTERS — DAN, THE 



CHESTNUT SADDLE-HORSE — CLIPPER RUTLAND GIRL 



GEORGE — SEALSKIN AND OLIVE DUNTON THE GREAT 



SMUGGLER. 



The idea of writing a book on training trotting- 

 horses occurred to me some years ago. It certainly 

 seemed to be a profession in which much was to be 

 tauo-ht, but in which there were neither text-books or 

 teachers. The need of a work on the subject is best 

 illustrated by the fact that "The Trotting-Horse of 

 America," by Hiram Woodruff, is still in demand, 

 though fully twenty years out of date. The young 

 man who reads Woodruff for instruction on training 

 trotters in these days is much in the position of one 

 who would follow Fulton's model in building a steam- 

 yacht. The crude process, of which Woodruff was a 

 master in his day, has been improved and perfected 

 into a fine art. It seemed to me that a modern work 

 was called for, lucidly explaining the most recent prac- 

 tices in training trotters, so that new men in the busi- 

 ness need not grope blindly in the dark, and only mas- 

 ter their profession by here and there stumbling upon 



