BREAKING SUNOL. 1 i O 



legs are clean and flat and of fine quality, and she 

 stands on first-rate feet. 



She was fast in the paddock, but we had trouble in 

 breaking her. She \Yas terribly high strung and 

 cranky from the outset, and every time it was neces- 

 sary to bring her under any sort of control or direction 

 there was trouble. In the hands of a rough, harsh or 

 bad-tempered trainer Sunol would have been ruined 

 beyond a doubt. We began to break her to harness at 

 a year old, We were as gentle as possible with her, 

 had every consideration for the high tension at which 

 her nerves were strung, and endeavored to gain her 

 confidence. After we had her used to the harness, and 

 to being guided by bridle and rein, she was worked a 

 little while bv the side of a steadv-o;oiuf]: horse, and 

 was then asked to go in single harness. But this the 

 haughty spirit of the coming queen would not calmly 

 brook. It was a difficult thino^ to get her into the 

 shafts, and after she was in she would do about every- 

 thing possible except go ahead in a decorous and 

 proper manner. In the skeleton-wagon she was 

 mean — would go sideways, stop, turn, etc., and in short 

 her course of education, in the breaking- barn, was a 

 rather turbulent one — and she did not graduate with 

 the highest honors, as to docility and rehabihty, when 

 she was transferred from that primary department 

 into my training-school in the fall of 1887. But that 

 great sieve, the miniature track, had sifted her out as 

 pure wheat, and we knew before we broke her that 

 she was the rough stone that only required tlie 

 trainer's polish to transform into a gem of the bright- 

 est ray. 



