ANIMAL INDUSTRIES 245 



Dillon (herself, her sire and her dam California-bred) 

 settled once and for ever the long-mooted question 

 of whether the 'two-minute trotter' should be classed 

 as a reality or merely as the product of enthusiastic 

 and optimistic conjecture. Piloted by Millar d Sand- 

 ers she swept to the quarter post in :30J, to the half 

 in 1 :03f , to the three-quarters in 1:31, and came to 

 the wire in an even 2 :00, later in the same year 

 reducing that mark to 1 :58J. There it still stands 

 as a record for trotting mares, and there it stood as a 

 record for all trotters until 1912, when Uhlan, trac-' 

 ing in direct line to Electioneer, clipped the half 

 second and established the present figures 1 :58." 



It is interesting to add that while Lou Dillon 

 spent her declining years in Kentucky as a breeding 

 matron, and thus became an installment payment of 

 California's equine debt to Kentucky, the inter-state 

 honors were made easy by the removal of Uhlan to 

 California, to residence on the farm of his owner, Mr. 

 Billings, near Santa Barbara. 



It may reasonably be claimed that the most endur- 

 ing benefit from the demonstration of the quality of 

 California-bred horses is probably the testimony it 

 bears to the adaptation of the climate, soil, forage 

 and water to the fullest development of excellence in 

 the horse, which has more recently been demonstrated 

 by national championships won by dairy and beef 

 cattle. From an agricultural point of view, the sev- 

 eral decades of breeding racing horses was no advan- 

 tage, for it diverted the attention of too many farmers 

 to breeding light and lanky animals instead of more 



