NINE STARTS EIGHT VICTORIES. 161 



"rattled " and made a very bad break, not settling until 

 he was back of the field. Tan Kess got out of the 

 tangle best, and went after Charley Hogan, with Palo 

 Alto hard on his track. But there was too much 

 ground to make up in the stretch, and Palo Alto broke 

 in a muscle-tired fashion, Albert France winning in 

 2:24^. My horse cooled out very well and he won the 

 deciding heat without much trouble in 2:25. It was a 

 trying race, and everv horse was tired, making it all 

 the more creditable for the four-year-old to stay and 

 win in the end. 



This campaign showed him to be a true and 

 game four-year-old race-horse. Out of nine starts he 

 scored eight victories. He had, like all horses, his 

 peculiarities. He generally had to trot a heat in com- 

 pany before he was ready to go out for the mone\% 

 and in driving him you had to strike a very happy 

 medium. He required vigorous and constant driving, 

 but there was a line beyond which it meant disaster to 

 go. He could not be driven with an over-check — he 

 liked a side-check with an independent snaffle-bit. His 

 gait is good and pure, carrying ten-ounce shoes in 

 front and five behind, and the usual protecting-boots 

 all around. Notwithstanding that his dam is thor- 

 oughbred, he is a good-headed horse, being certainly as 

 steady as the average purely trotting-bred horse, and 

 showing certainly no more disposition to leave his feet 

 under hard pressure than fast trotters usually do. 



Palo Alto suffered in the fire of April, 1888, and had 

 indeed a narrow escape from being burned to death. 

 But few of the scars have lasted, his most conspicuous 

 loss being the demoralization of his tail (as our faithful 



