122 



The Driving Clubs of Greater Boston 



2:01 1-4. in order to beat him. The race was 

 apparently what Uhlan wanted to shape him 

 up, as at Readville, he turned the 

 tables on the mare, and the result of the 

 race caused C. K. G. Billings, the multi-mil- 

 lionaire of Chicago, 111., to buy Uhlan from 

 Mr. Sanders for $35,000. With the change 

 of ownership the horse was taken from Mr. 

 Proctor and given in charge of Mr. Billings' 

 trainer, Charles Tanner, who the following 

 year gave him a record of 1 158 3-4. Before 

 retiring him from the turf, Mr. Tanner suc- 

 ceeded in still further reducing Uhlan's rec- 

 ord by giving him a mark of 1 :s8, in the sea- 

 son of 1912. 



Mr. Tanner, who had the handling of 

 the world's greatest trotter in all of his 

 record breaking heats, and even toured Eu- 

 rope with him, even so far as the distant land 

 of Russia, exhibiting him before the crown 

 heads of the European countries, has fre- 

 quently given Mr. Proctor great credit for 

 the condition that Uhlan was in when received 

 by him, and the marvelous performances 

 which he afterwards made. It is due to Mr. 

 Proctor that we quote what Mr. Tanner has 

 said, as follows : 



"I want to pay Proctor the compliment of 

 saying that the condition in which Uhlan then 

 was, considering what had been done with 

 him, was the best possible evidence of the 

 skill with which he had been prepared and 

 trained. While it was reserved for me to 

 make him a true two-minute trotter, Proctor 

 had already demonstrated that he was close 

 to one in the Randall track race in which, 

 trotting outside Hamburg Belle all the way, 

 he had finished at her throatlatch in 2:01 1-4 

 — which, all things considered, was nearly, if 

 not fully, equal to a dress parade mile in two 

 minutes, with everything in his favor. 



"He came into my hands in absolutely per- 

 fect physical condition. There was not a 

 pimple visible upon his legs, he was stout and 

 fresh, carrying as much or more flesh than 

 when I first saw him weeks before, and he 

 had all his 'whizz.' His manners also testified 

 to the care with which he had been educated. 

 In public his deportment has always been so 

 good that few people, perhaps, have any idea 

 how highly organized he really is. 



"I hardly need to say that any horse which 

 trots in two minutes must be keyed high, but 

 that is no reason why they should not have 

 good manners. It is easy to render them bad- 

 mannered, however, and Uhlan could have 

 been spoiled early in his career, had he not 

 been handled judiciously. He is not only high- 

 strung, with a decided will of his own, but he 

 is also a very wise horse— I have come in con- 



tact with few as brainy and that had as much 

 true individuality. 



"That I found him so tractable I think one 

 of the most creditable things in connection 

 with his development and something upon 

 which Proctor can justly pride himself. 



"It was on Wednesday that Uhlan was 

 bought and I shipped him to the Randall 

 track at once, for there was to be a matinee 

 there the next Saturday and Air. Billings was 

 coming on from New York to take his first 

 drive behind him. This being the case, I asked 

 Proctor to be on hand also, in order that he 

 might 'put us next' to the gelding's pecul- 

 iarities, which he did exhaustively, taking 

 great pains to explain everything which he 

 thought would be essential for us to know. 



"The day in question proved a very un- 

 pleasant one, cold and raw, with a slow track. 

 In consequence, Mr. Billings did little more 

 than jog Uhlan, driving him a mile in 

 2:I 4 3-4. to wagon, only, with the last quarter 

 in 3D 3-4S- after Proctor had driven him a 

 mile to sulky in 2:05 1-2, the last half in 

 1 :oi 1-2, which he did so easily that Mr. Bil- 

 lings was much pleased with him. 



"About his shoeing. It has already been 

 published that I made some quite radical 

 changes in this from the methods employed 

 by Proctor, so I may as well say that I did, 

 but in doing so I do not want 'to be under- 

 stood as criticising the way in which Proctor 

 balanced him. When a trainer can do what 

 Proctor did with Uhlan, what call is there for 

 criticism ? However, he balanced him, as bal- 

 anced he certainly must have been. But every 

 trainer has his own ideas of gait and balance, 

 and likes to apply them. If I changed Uhlan' 

 it was not because I wanted to criticise Proc- 

 tor, but because I wanted to rig the horse 

 my way and see if he would not go good so 

 rigged. It shows what a great horse he was 

 that he could break records rigged both ways. 

 Probably if he was then to have passed into 

 the hands of some other trainer, he might 

 have made changes in him to correspond with 

 his own ideas, and he would have continued 

 to break records." 



Uhlan was trained on what has been called 

 the "mile upon mile" system. Of course he 

 was given some brush work, but the most he 

 got he gave himself. He did this the days he 

 was jogged. It was his habit to "light out'" in- 

 variably, at some time during his exercise 

 and sprint a hundred yards or so about as fast 

 as he could go. Sometimes be would only do 

 this once, sometimes he would do it two or 

 three t,mes, and he was generally allowed to 

 have Ins way about it. This, as much as any- 

 thing, made him always have his speed with 

 bun. His track work was chiefly given him 



