120 TKAINING THE TROTTING HORSE. 



crossed the mountains Wildflower got down with dis- 

 temper, from which she has never recovered and the 

 evidence of which she will always carry. She broke 

 out in sores, which have left their scars, and the 

 membranes of the nostrils were so affected that she 

 " whistles " in her ordinary breathing. This attack 

 Avas very unfortunate, for we expected — and had a 

 right to expect — brilliant things of Wildflower in her 

 maturer years. She was a great mare after the Fleet- 

 wood race, and could most undoubtedly have pla\^ed 

 with any three year-old of her year. She was a pure- 

 gaited, easy-going mare, had abundant natural speed, 

 and was game and resolute. She would respond to 

 the extent of her abihty to every call. She is now a 

 fine-looking brood-mare, and has alread}^ given evidence 

 that it is not unreasonable to expect that some of her 

 children will be as great as herself. 



The little mare Bonita was another wonderfully fast 

 two year-old, and, more fortunate than Wildflower, 

 encountered nothing to prevent her training on "to 

 greater things." She was foaled May 21, 1879, and is 

 bred in lines of blood almost identical to those of 

 Wildflower and Manzanita, being by Electioneer, out 

 of Mayfly, 2:30i, by St. Clair. Mayfly was, like May- 

 flower, among the fastest Calif ornian trotters of twenty 

 years ago, and it is something of a coincidence that 

 these two daughters of St. Clair, great trotters in their 

 day and with records almost equal, should each in her 

 turn produce, by the one sire, a daughter to break the 

 four-year-old record of the world. It is only another 

 proof that speed is not accidental, but an inherent 

 quality of the blood. Though from the loins of Elec- 



