HAMLIN AND SPEED DEVELOPMENT 



fastest representatives of the Wilkes tribe and offered 

 to try to defeat them in turn with one representative 

 of the Almont family. As Prince Wilkes had re- 

 peatedly started last summer for purses of $1000, 

 and, as Harry Wilkes had done battle for $1500 

 or less, I thought that I was liberal in making for 

 each a stake, including added money, of $3500. And, 

 if Mr. Singerly and the Sire Bros, think so poorly 

 of Belle Hamlin as they pretend, it seems strange 

 that they did not snap up my challenge without seek- 

 ing to evade it by making counter propositions. Mr. 

 Singerly wants me to come to Philadelphia and trot, 

 and the Sire Brothers object to putting their noses 

 inside of Buffalo. Before July 4 Buffalo Park will 

 have passed into the hands of the International Fair 

 Association, and this organization will see to it that 

 both parties to any contest over its track have fair 

 play. Judges will be placed in the stand against 

 whom no honest objection can be lodged. Absorbed 

 with business as I am, I cannot conveniently spend 

 much time from home, and I am not seeking to take 

 advantage of any one trotting against Belle Hamlin. 

 The Buffalo track will be one of the safest in the 

 country this summer, and I cherish an ambition to 

 have Belle Hamlin lower her record on it. Heat 

 races will settle the speed supremacy issue more sat- 

 isfactorily than three-in-five contests, and there will 

 be less risk of tearing the horses to pieces. Belle 

 Hamlin demonstrated at Cleveland in July, 1886, 

 when she won a five-heat race from a field of six, 

 including Spofford and Manzanita, trotting the fifth 

 heat in 2.i8J, after scoring twenty-seven times, that 

 she is not much of a duffer. I repeat what I have 

 said before, that it is the pace which kills with her 

 as with other fast performers. Harry Wilkes dis- 



135 



