. MANZAXITA AND PALO ALTO. 133 



condition of things was not without its disadvantages, 

 for Manzanita and Palo Alto were compelled to trot, if 

 they trotted at all, against aged horses, and in consider- 

 ing their campaign the reader will not forget that 

 (except in stake races for four-year-olds) they were 

 compelled to concede years of age to their opponents ; 

 and whatever we may believe as to mere speed, age 

 undoubtedly tells in a long and trying race. 



Taken on her public performances alone, Manzanita 

 must be adjudged one of the most remarkable trotting- 

 mares that this fast age and the fast family from which 

 she sprung has produced, but to fully appreciate her 

 real worth one must know what the public does not 

 know — must know the ailments and the mishaps, in 

 spite of which she was the champion of her age ; and 

 after all she has publicly accomplished under these 

 handicaps her real capacity has never been shown to 

 the world, for she broke down just at the height of 

 her powers, and when to an absolute certainty she was 

 on the eve of trotting to a record faster than any 

 mare, with the single exception of Maud S. and Sunol, 

 has ever made. This mav not meet the approbation of 

 some critics, who, knowing nothing whatever of the 

 real facts concerning Manzanita's history, her s])eed or 

 her capacity, and who may have seen her in one race 

 or who may have never seen her at all, presume to 

 judo^e of her adversely, basing their whole judgment 

 on the cast-iron and preconceived opinion that nothing 

 great could come from her " plebeian-bred dam," May- 

 flower — that the blood of St. Clair must necessarily 

 carry "softness" with it. However, as I trained and 

 drove this great mare throughout her career, I will, I 



