30 TRAINING THE TROTTING HORSE. 



Palo Alto, its horses, its methods and its campaigns^ 

 and then to lay down the course of training and man- 

 agement which these experiences have taught. "With 

 these prefatory remarks we may start at once upon 

 our journey. 



Though all my life had been spent in working more 

 or less with horses, I first began training trotters, as a 

 business or profession, in 1869o I was then at Paola,. 

 Kansas, engaged in the liver}^ stable business, and took 

 up the training of trotters as a supplemental^ occupa- 

 tion. Perhaps I should not say I began training trot- 

 ters, for in reality I began training pacers to trot. In- 

 deed my early successes were all in the line of convert- 

 ing pacers to the orthodox gaitc The first horse of 

 any account that came into my hands was the chest- 

 nut gelding Dan. He was a sort of saddle-horse, and 

 a natural pacer. He was owned by Mr. S. Oo Jerome, 

 and after I had learned him to trot we started him at 

 St. Joseph, Missouri, on July 4, 1870, against Aroos- 

 took Boy, George Wilkes Jr. and Pilot Boy. I won 

 with Dan in straight heats, trotting the second heat in 

 2:33. On the 6th he again defeated George Wilkes 

 Jr., and on the lith distanced Kansas Maid for a purse 

 of $400. Dan was on the turf for over four years, 

 trotting upwards of twenty races, and winning eleven 

 times, but he never beat the record I gave him in his 

 first race at St. Joseph. I converted him from the 

 pace with weight in the shoe. 



My next horse of any account was the bay gelding 

 Clipper, who had paced in 2:31. I learned him to trot, 

 and after he got going clever at that gait, Mr. Benja- 

 min Akers, the then well-known Kansas breeder^ 



