CHAPTEE XII. 



CONSTRUCTING THE TKACK BREAKING COLTS. 



PUPIL. Stable tricks and vices are very annoying ; and 

 tne old adage of prevention being tenfold better than 

 cure, is worthy of being accepted as saving an immensity 

 of trouble, by nipping in the bud habits that become in- 

 curable when allowed to seat themselves. Idleness and 

 confinement are a source of most of them, and when horses 

 are in sufficient exercise there is not much danger of their 

 acquiring them. Having now a little spare time before 

 dinner, I will take up the history of the Iowa farm, broken 

 off when the training-barn was built. We will now con- 

 struct the track, and begin the education of the colts, by 

 this time well advanced in their second year. The field 

 where we will build the track has already been partially 

 described ; lying on the north side of the road that di- 

 vides the estate in nearly equal portions. I find an old 

 habit so old, indeed, that it is one of the very first of 

 my recollections still clinging to me, and which I will 

 never be able to rid myself of. My life has been twofold : 

 the actual, made up of rather more stirring scenes than 

 falls to the lot of every one, in which I have exhibited a 

 fair share of energy and determination ; the other has 

 been an inner life, which has more than occupied its due 

 half of my years, a dreamy, inactive one, where fancy has 

 taken place of reality, affording day-dreams, more en- 

 trancing than the rosiest visions, dreams seen while the 



