John Shepard Tells of Racing to Sleigh 

 On the Mill Dam and Beacon Street 



JOHN SHEPARD, the veteran lover 

 of good horses, relates the following 

 of old-time racing on the Mill Dam 

 and Deacon Street Boulevard: 

 "The gentlemen of the road would 

 often give me a trotter -which they considered 

 a bit 'gone by,' and, as a general rule, I could 

 take him and beat the very horse the big 

 Fellows fancied most. They said it was be- 

 cause 1 made so much noise behind the horse. 

 but I don't believe it. 



"Personally, I think the reason for my 

 success lay solely in my energetic driving. 



"I remember one instance, when I sold 

 Dick Swiveller to Frank Work for pretty 

 close to $12,000. 



"We were driving down the Harlem road, 

 and by the time we reached 'Gabe' Case's 1 

 had passed everything except Work, who 

 was driving Swiveller. Naturally, I didn't 

 like to embarrass Mr. Work right in front 

 of all the people who were out, and so 1 had 

 to pull my horse away over to the other side 

 of the road. 



"Mr. Work, of course, didn't know of this 

 episode, and he was much pleased with 

 Swiveller's performance. 



"Then there was another incident nearer 

 home which I like to remember. I was tak- 

 ing Thomas Plant out, in Boston, with a fine 

 pair of horses. We went along merrily for a 

 time, and I could see that my companion was 

 turning something over in his mind. Finally, 

 after a long silence, he said : 



" 'Mr. Shepard, I want to tell you some- 

 thing. Some time ago I had a wonderfully- 

 fast horse which could beat everything in 

 sight, and I was very anxious to get an op- 

 portunity to beat you. At last, after many 

 days of good sleighing, I got out on the 

 P.rookline road and found you, and we 

 started together. 



" 'The horse I was driving would make 

 frequent breaks, but would always steady 

 down again and recover without losing any- 

 thing. 



" 'You were trotting Reina at a good clip, 

 and when we got down the road a bit, right 

 in front of a big crowd, my horse broke, and 

 you turned around and said: "Let him run, 

 that gait will suit me as well as any other," 

 and we went right down without any acci- 

 dent. 



"'When we turned to go back, 1 asked 

 you to try that once more, because I didn't 

 like you to beat me that way. You said no, 

 that you wouldn't start in cold blood for any- 

 thing, but that if I would go back to Cool- 

 idge's Corner with you, you would be glad 

 to trot with me. 



" 'Well, we went back, and several other 

 gentlemen with horses accompanied us to see 



JOHN SHEPARD 



the brush and try to get in front of you, so 

 that I could beat you, an event which would 

 have afforded them great pleasure. 



' 'When we got to the corner, everyone 

 turned around, and the whole file of us 

 started off at once. We had gone a quarter 

 of a mile or so, when to our surprise we saw 

 that you were not with us, and so we pulled 

 up to wait for you : at this you whipped up 

 and came down the road on the jump, and. 

 when you were near us, you yelled for us to 

 go ahead. We all started off, but many oi 

 the horses broke and some couldn't move 

 off fast enough, and you, with skilful driving, 

 got through. Then I made up my mind it 

 was no use trying to beat you, and we all 

 followed you down. Yes, Mr. Shepard, 

 Reina was a good mare. She beat every- 

 thing that came out on the snow.' 



