138 TRAINING THE TROTTING HORSE. 



chief sharpness consists in finding quitters. They first 

 look at a colt's breeding and they find a strain that 

 some old campaigner has sworn by all the stable-oaths 

 is "soft." They put it right down in their book that 

 that colt not only will quit but m ust quit. Then when 

 he comes on the turf they, before they have ever seen 

 him, solemnly impart the information to all their 

 friends that that colt is a quitter. And it don't matter 

 how he trots, win or lose, whether he is a game one or 

 not, whether he is sick or well, whether he loses a heat 

 by an accident, by a break, or is beaten b}^ a speedier 

 horse, these sharp turfites, having once said that a 

 horse 7nust he a quitter, consider themselves under a 

 solemn obligation to carry that belief intact to their 

 graves. And every time they back their theory and 

 lose, they believe in it all the harder, like the Salvation 

 Army men who declare that unless we keep on " believ- 

 ing hard " we will lose our faith. Xothing will convince 

 some talented observers of trotting-horses that they 

 ever made a mistake about anything, and especially 

 about '' quitters " that they know nothing of. I have 

 often, in remembering the criticisms passed on Smug- 

 gler and Manzanita, thought, " What fools these mor- 

 tals be." 



The close and logical observer will never jump at a 

 conclusion about the qualities of a race-horse. You 

 must see him not in one race, but in several races, and 

 you must know about his condition in his races before 

 you can determine that a horse is faint-hearted. The 

 most resolute horse in the world will not trot resolutely 

 if he be ailing, and he cannot trot resolutely if his 

 physical machinery be out of repair. The gamest 



