116 TRAINING THE TROTTING HORSE. 



along on a sort of compromise between the old and 

 the new way of training colts, very seldom working 

 full miles, but giving him a good manj^ fast halves, and 

 under this treatment he progressed very well, but not 

 so fast as we have since brought along youngsters 

 whose early education was more intelligently directed. 

 Tlie race was advertised for September 15th, at Sacra- 

 mento. We were not over-confident, for we knew that 

 Mr. L. J. Eose's filly Sweetheart, by Sultan, had 

 trotted in 3:07 as a yearling, and the reports of the 

 doinofs of the Los An oleics mare were verv favorable. 

 She won the stake in straight heats— 2:31|, 2:32J — 

 but Crocker gave her a good race, and in the esti- 

 mation of many the second heat should have been, 

 awarded to him. The next dav — the same day that 

 Capt. Smith beat Del Sur, as already related — Mr. 

 Eose sent his great mare against So So's tw^o-3^ear-old 

 record (2:31), and she beat it handsomely in 2:26^, and 

 all California w^as fired with honest pride, for a Cali- 

 fornian youngster had beaten the two-year-old record 

 of the world, and those who foretold the great possi- 

 bilities of the State as a horse-breeding region felt that 

 their arguments had been eloquently and conclusively 

 vindicated. It was a great day for the flowery land 

 south of the Sierra Madre range — a great day for the 

 San Gabriel farm, for the popular Mr. Eose, and for 

 Sultan. And w^hile w^e of the Palo Alto neighborhood, 

 believing that California should have the tw^o-year-old 

 record, rejoiced and were proud of Sweetheart's per- 

 formance, we still thought that the record-holder 

 should hail from the Santa Clara valley, rather than 

 the San Gabriel Valley, and accordingly set to work to 



