TURNER'S METHODS. 55 



lowing season Happy Bee failed to connect. Rosaline 

 Wilkes showed that her racing days were over, and a 

 couple of other buds failed to bloom when the rays of 

 the Grand Circuit sun hit them in August. Abbie V. 

 also failed to win when expected. She showed that 

 she carried the stout blood of Aberdeen, but somehow 

 when pinched the Peavine combination in her dam 

 made the cogs jump when not expected. 



Having risen from the ranks, Turner was a master 

 of every detail in a racing stable. He favored kind- 

 ness to punishment and on that account never carried 

 a heavy whip when working a horse or in a race. He 

 taught his horses to do their best at the word or a light 

 tap, and from the day that he was high enough in the 

 profession to reject a horse he would not train one that 

 pulled. When settled in his seat for a hard drive, 

 Turner was as erect as a field marshal on dress parade. 

 There was no give or take to him. He had no time to 

 look around to see what the other fellow was doing, 

 but sat there steadying his horse, confident that the 

 nag knew what was wanted. Age did not change him 

 a trifle in this particular, many of his best finishes 

 being driven the season he retired from active racing. 



While identified with racing John E. Turner made 

 more clever remarks than half of the men in the busi- 

 ness, and being equipped with what Sam Slick, the 

 Yankee Clockmaker, termed the two great requisites 

 of life, a knowledge of "human natur" and a supply 

 of "soft sodder," he whisked out of many an awkward 

 situation. Time and again he said that when there 

 was something doing the judges rarely said a word to 

 him, but when he was trying they were very apt to 

 bother him. On one occasion when the judges com- 



