CRESCEUS, 2:02V4 



the year. The friends of Tommy Britton were confi- 

 dent he would defeat Cresceus, and the fact that the 

 race was best two in three was thought to be very 

 favorable to the Chicago stallion. Britton was said to 

 be in the best of fettle, having trotted an eighth of a 

 mile in fourteen seconds, a i -.^2 gait, the morning 

 before the race, and was thought to have the race at 

 his mercy. Yet Cresceus put it over him at every stage 

 of the game, and in each of the heats the finish was 

 an affair of one horse only, Britton being very palpa- 

 bly out of it, sometime before the wire was reached. 



It rained in the evening before the race and on the 

 morning of the race the track was slippery with mud. 

 Horses were worked on the outside of it, however, 

 and by afternoon it looked to be in first-class shape. 

 It was late in the afternoon when Cresceus and Brit- 

 ton appeared on the track ready for the race. They 

 had been warmed up, and the way Britton stepped 

 through the home-stretch showed he was not short of 

 speed, no matter what else troubled him. Cresceus was 

 placid and steady as usual, and so great was the differ- 

 ence between his rather lumbering gait and Britton's 

 showy way of going that it really looked as though 

 the two stallions were not in the same class. A strin- 

 gent anti-betting law in Pennsylvania prevented any 

 public speculation on the race, but in what little private 

 wagering was done there was far more Britton money 

 in sight than could be taken care of. All the trainers 

 at the track, and all the wise people were on Britton. 



67 



