30 THE BEGINNING. 



as he called it, hitched to his speeding sleigh and when 

 the blankets were pulled off, those who were near by 

 saw a sixteen-hand brown gelding a little on the leggy 

 order with a head like a barrel, long, tapering ears 1 

 which almost met at the tips and a rat tail that worked 

 up and down like a pump handle when he was going. 

 As he warmed him up a little all but his cronies began 

 to think that for once in his life Hi Hopkins had been 

 skinned in a horse deal. And so it proved, as both 

 Nelly Gray and the unknown trotted rings around him 

 when it came to racing. 



"Fifteen or sixteen years after the above race was 

 trotted,! was one Sunday morning sitting on the steps 

 in front of the club house at Fleetwood Park, New 

 York. A number of members' horses were being 

 worked for the edification of their owners, one of the 

 lot being a low-headed gray mare without a name or 

 record. After a couple of warming up heats she 

 stepped a mile in 2 125 and a fraction, the last quarter 

 of it being a shade better than a twenty gait. Her 

 owner was delighted with the performance and after 

 the honors had been done in the usual way, said that 

 he had owned and driven her dam and her grandam, 

 both of them being grays and gaited like the one we 

 had just seen. He also stated that the grandam had 

 made a record in the thirties and had trotted Fleet- 

 wood better than 2 130, but that he had sold her to 

 some one living up north after she had been so unfor- 

 tunate as to get mixed up in a runaway on Seventh 

 Avenue. At this point I asked him her name and he 

 replied, 'Nelly Gray.' " 



As he spoke the name I heard a shuffling of feet 

 and a husky voice say "Shake," while at the same time 



