36 HORSE POKTRAITUEE. 



ing good locations, that I could sell readily at a greatly 

 advanced price, my fancy for horses was only indulged as 

 a pleasant interlude to the excitement of the land gam- 

 bling. When I bought him I placed him in the hands of 

 a trainer, who was reported to be the best in that part of 

 the country. It was no trouble to break him to harness. 

 On the first trial he went round the track hitched to a 

 sulkey, on a trot that was as easy as the flight of a swal- 

 low. There was not much bending of the knee, and his 

 action was so different from the spluttering little Black- 

 hawks and Morgans then all the rage in that section of 

 the country that the lookers-on ridiculed the idea of his 

 ever making a fast trotter. I did not see him for several 

 months, having been on an extended tour "land hunt- 

 ing." That fall he trotted at a State Fair, in 3: 05 ; which 

 was certainly as fast, for the time in training, as I ex- 

 pected in my most sanguine moments, but no one else 

 thought he would trot fast. 



In the winter, he ran in a loose box. "When spring 

 time came, and the prairie roads got dry and smooth, I 

 commenced driving him on them. He completely carried 

 me away in a double sense. I thought I had owned and 

 driven road horses very nearly as good as could be found, 

 but I discovered he was so much superior to the best of 

 them, that I took no pleasure in driving any other. 

 Seventy miles a day was play to him, and he literally re- 

 quired no driving; a word would restrain him when most 

 anxious to go. He never saw anything to shy at, but 

 went along as straight as a line. His excellencies were 

 so manifold, that were I to recapitulate them, it would be 

 tedious. Unluckily, I again let his former trainer have 

 him. The first time he went on the track, he trotted 

 easily two miles in six minutes. The same day I matched 

 him against a Blackhawk stallion for a couple of thou- 

 sands, p. p. The match made a great deal of talk and 



