Ill TRAINING THE TROTTING HORSE. 



mentioned had their effect, and when she started 

 against Santa Clans, November 13th, she was lame, 

 and wore a rubber bandage to support the strained 

 ligament. Still she made Santa Glaus trot five heats 

 to win. The time of the race shows that it was a good 

 one— 2:20, 2:18, 2:20^, 2:18^, 2:20— Elaine Avinning the 

 first and third heats. Santa Glaus was a good race- 

 horse, and it took a good horse nine years ago to force 

 one of his class to trot five heats averao^ing' better than 

 2:20. Elaine was a very rapid-gaited mare, and had, 

 as I have shown, a world of speed, but her propensity 

 for pulling on the bit made it difficult, and, indeed, 

 impossible to properly control that speed, and so dis- 

 tribute or rate it over a mile as to show by the 

 figures of a mile record just what her capacity 

 was. She was somewhat peculiar in her gait. She 

 might be going well and fast, and you could 

 chirrup to her and she would respond, but the 

 increase in her speed would be so gradual that she 

 would have gone perhaps a hundred yards before 

 you could detect that she had quickened her pace, but 

 by that time it would be terrific speed. Her increase 

 of speed was almost imperceptible, like the gradual 

 gain of a wheel gathering speed from its own 

 momentum. Elaine has better legs than the most of 

 the Messenger Duroc family, and, barring Electioneer, 

 was b}^ far the best of Governor Stanford's purchases 

 from Mr. Backman. Her daughter, the fleet and 

 beautiful, but ill-starred Norlaine, had not exactly her 

 action, but we have, at Palo Alto, in Anselma, a 

 daughter of Ansel's and her's, a young mare gaited 

 exactly like Elaine. 



