The Growth of Discipline: Shows 293 



and in 1875 there was a clash between the new 

 tracks at Rochester and Poughkeepsie. The 

 Grand Trotting Circuit was thus extended, and 

 summer after summer I started with the horses 

 at Cleveland and followed them to the close. 

 The charm of those days will always linger with 

 me. I was a member of the fortunate visiting 

 delegations, and at each place there was a series 

 of social entertainments. Ladies sat with gentle- 

 men through elaborate dinners, and as the topic 

 of conversation was the horse, the love of trotting^ 

 was well nourished, and the fever spread to all 

 sections of the country and gave a tremendous 

 boom to breeding. Other circuits were formed 

 and tracks multiplied until we were able to count 

 them by the thousand instead of by the score. 

 In his " Tales of the Turf," W. H. Gocher quotes 

 Hon. Lewis J. Powers of Springfield, who has 

 been the treasurer of the National Trotting 

 Association from the start, and was one of the 

 stewards of the Grand Circuit, as follows : — 



" To what might be termed the ' Old Guard,' 

 there are many pleasant memories attached to 

 those meetings and banquets at which the love 

 for a good horse and the purely American sport, 

 harness racing, was the bond of fellowship. 



