208 HANDBOOK OF THE TURF. 



Recovery. A catch at breaking which brings the horse 



to his gait. When the horse at such time catches his gait and 



goes to speed, he is said to " recover"; to have recovered. 



Everybody knows that pacers are ordinarily not as liaudy in recover- 

 ing Iruni a break as are trotters.— Wallace's Monthly. 



Rectangular Course. A rectangle is a plane having 

 all its angles right angles, and its opposite sides consequently 

 equal. Hence a rectangular track or course is one commonly 

 called a four-cornered track, with four short stretches and four 

 turns ; of which the track at Terre Haute, Indiana, on which 

 Nancy Hanks made her record of 2:04, is an example. 



Reefing". Driving for every inch of speed the horse has 

 in him ; using the whip ; urging ; hard driving ; forcing the 

 pace by every known means ; rallying the horse by voice and 

 rein to his best effort. 



Refuser. A horse that refuses an obstacle or a hurdle, 

 either from fear, contrary disposition, having been badly edu- 

 cated, is afraid of forcing his bit, or of hurting himself when 

 taking-off. By the turf rules, a refuser having been led over 

 an obstacle, is disqualified from winning, although he comes in 

 first. 



Registry Certificate. A certificate from any estab- 

 lished or well recognized registry association for recording 

 either pedigrees or records, that the pedigree or record of which 

 it is a copy, has been duly received and is eligible to registry 

 and publication. 



Regular Meeting. A regular meeting is construed to 

 mean a meeting advertised in a public journal not less than 

 one week before the commencement of the same, and at which 

 meeting no less than two regular events, (purse or stake), take 

 place on each day, to which an entrance fee is paid or a sub- . 

 scription made ; entries must be made as provided in all cases, 

 and matches or races must take place over the tracks of the 

 National or American Associations. 



Regulation Track. A regulation track is one gener- 

 ally understood to mean a track the stretches and tm'ns of 

 which are each eighty rods long ; again it has been taken to 

 mean one in which the stretches are shorter and the turns 

 longer. But the shape of a track will always depend much 

 upon the lay of the land. That at Springfield, Mass., has 

 stretches one hundred rods long, and turns correspondingly 

 shorter; the track at Rigby Park, Maine, has seventy rod 

 stretches and eighty rod turns, and the track at Terre 

 Haute, Ind., has four stretches and four short turns — yet they 

 are all regulation tracks. On a regulation track the horses 



