110 TRAINING THE TROTTING HORSE. 



and break in the most annojang manner, and, as usual 

 with a horse so strongly indined to pace when he 

 broke, he made standstill breaks. After I had him 

 awhile I taught him to break better, and once drove 

 him a quarter, with a break in it, in thirty-three 

 seconds. He Avent a mile for me over the Palo Alto 

 track, which was forty-five feet long, in 2:19. He was 

 a little dark bay, or brown horse, weighing about 900 

 pounds, very compactly built, of pacing form, with a 

 very steep rump, a handsome head, and legs of iron. 

 He never was Occident while I had him, and Governor 

 Stanford has expressed to me his belief that had our 

 methods been followed with him Avhen young he 

 would have trotted as fast a mile as any horse of 

 our day. 



The grey gelding Abe Edgington was an Ohio bred 

 horse. He was by Stockbridge Chief Jr., a grandson 

 of Vermont Black Hawk. His first notable perform- 

 ance was at San Francisco, May 11, 1875, in a match 

 with the brown gelding Defiance, by Chieftain. This 

 horse had made a pacing record of 2:171 two years 

 before, and had then been put to trotting, and in the 

 sprmg of 1875 was matched against Edgington for 

 $10,000 a side. Defiance was beaten, though he won 

 the first heat in 2:21^, and the third in 2:29. Governor 

 Stanford, I understand, paid a long price for Edging- 

 ton — $20,000 it was said to be. Doble took him East 

 when he took Occident, and had better luck with him, 

 winning two or three good races, and once beating 

 among others the fast mare Belle Brasfield. I have 

 already detailed what he did after I went to Palo Alto 

 in 1878. 



