58 TRAINING THE TROTTING HORSE. 



experiment. He falls back, and to the right, with the 

 intention of getting out around the pocket. Too late, 

 too late, is the hoarse whisper. Why, man, you have 

 but a hundred and fifty yards to straighten your horse 

 and head the Maid, whose speed has been reserved for 

 just such an occasion as this. Her gait is 2:14, and you 

 are simply mad. The uncounted thousands hold their 

 breath. The stallion does not leave his feet although 

 pulled at a forty -five angle to the right, and the mo 

 ment that his head is clear and the path open he 

 dashes forward with the speed of the staghound. It is 

 more like flying than trotting. Smuggler goes over 

 the score a winner of the heat by a neck, and the roar 

 which comes from the grand-stand and the quarter- 

 stretch is deafening. As Marvin comes back to the 

 stand to weigh, the ovation is even greater than that 

 which he received in- the preceding heat. Nothing like 

 the burst of speed he had shown had ever been seen on 

 ihe track, and it may be that it never will be seen 

 again." It was, perhaps, bad judgment on my part to 

 gel mto the pocket, but the way in which the heat was 

 pulled out of the fire atoned for it, and the public 

 cheered the same as if no apparent mistake had been 

 made. Many who cheered that da}^ had cursed " the 

 hoosier" two years before at Buffalo, and had Smug- 

 gler lost his feet in the desperate maneuver he would 

 have lost the race, and the cheers would have changed 

 to imprecations. So fickle a thing is public favor, and 

 upon so narrow threads depend victor \^ or defeat ! 



That heat made it clear that a combination had been 

 formed to beat Smuggler. The pocket game did not 

 York, and tactics were changed. The trick now was 



