90 TRAINING THE TROTTINa HORSE. 



sion of Palo Alto was, that if one spent a month 

 industriously here he might, at the end of that time, 

 have a fair and intelligent conception of the trotting 

 department of the great establishment in all its details. 

 To-day, after devoting two months to the subject, I am 

 sure that my first estimate was under the mark, and 

 that I have not yet seen all that can profitably be seen, 

 nor learned all that any intelligent horseman can 

 learn. An establishment where any one of tlie several 

 training stables equals the training de])artment of any 

 ordinary large stock-farm, and where from seventy to 

 eighty trotting-horses are daily in training — where 

 upward of twenty stallions are used more or less, and 

 where the trotting-harem numbers upward of 300 

 matrons — such an establishment is not to be intelli- 

 gently inspected in a day or a week. I have seen the 

 principal stock-farms of America, and it is easy to say 

 that no two or three of them rolled into one would 

 duplicate Palo Alto ; but saying so does not adequately 

 convey an idea of the scale on w4iich Governor Stan- 

 ford's 'nursery of trotters' is conducted. In the 

 extent of his enterprise, as w^ell as in some other 

 respects. Governor Stanford is easily the first trotting- 

 horse breeder in the world." 



Mohawk Chief was purchased in 1875 b}^ Governor 

 Stanford, in 'New York, and brought to Sacramento. 

 He was a son of Pj^sdj^k's Hambletonian, a horse of 

 fine proportions and style, but he has proved a failure 

 as a sire of trotters, though some of his daughters have 

 produced well, notably Sontag Mohawk, the dam of the 

 great mare Sally Benton, 2:17$, Sport, 2:22f , Eros, 2:29^, 

 etc. Then, in 1876, the young son of Hambletonian 



