RECOLLECTIONS OF MEN AND HORSES 



stances. In this case he is one of the owners and is 

 fully alive to the importance of winning or staying 

 in the stable. He says there is too much at stake 

 to incur anything more than a fractional risk; that 

 Axtell is a stallion, and we cannot afford to have 

 him beaten; that in this contest the best representa- 

 tives of the rival Electioneer and Wilkes family come 

 together, and it would be difficult to estimate the 

 damage to the defeated horse. In addition to this 

 I think he feels it is a contest of judgment and skill 

 between Marvin and himself, and, if he puts himself 

 in position to be defeated, the public will say his 

 judgment was bad, otherwise he would never have 

 started when defeat meant so much to himself. In 

 view of all this, and much more that could be said, 

 one sees what a difficult undertaking we have be- 

 fore us." 



It was not the fault of Marvin or Sunol that the 

 rival four-year-olds did not meet in a desperate strug- 

 gle for supremacy. When Doble decided to keep 

 Axtell in the stable, a few exhibitions were given 

 with Sunol and the best mile she trotted in them was 

 2.ioJ. At Belmont Park, Philadelphia, on Thurs- 

 day, September 4, there was an enormous crowd to 

 see Sunol and Palo Alto perform, and, had not Mar- 

 vin incautiously pressed the hip of Sunol with his 

 knee around the turn, the record of the young mare 

 would then and there have been beaten. As it was 

 Sunol lost her stride and failed. 



The flying daughter of Electioneer and Waxana 

 was taken back to California that fall, and October 

 20, 1891, at Stockton, Marvin drove her to a record 



90 



