244 The American Tboroiigbbred 



two services were permitted at $ioo each. The 

 capital at which he held his first court was 

 Chesterfield, Virginia. 



From the fact that he was not in proper form 

 in the spring of 1841, Boston naturally did not 

 start in any races. But after this season had 

 ended, so great was the desire, not only on the 

 part of his owners, but on the part of the great 

 public, who had come to worship him as the 

 type and essence of all that was greatest in the 

 thoroughbred world, in this country or abroad, 

 that Boston was taken up in the fall and put to 

 galloping, to see if any constitutional injury as a 

 racing machine had occurred to him through his 

 retirement in the spring. 



After due preparation a trial was given him 

 over his home track at Petersburg, and an eye- 

 witness to this trial, who went over two hundred 

 miles to see it, assured his racing friends in New 

 York, on his return, that it was not only the best 

 trial Boston ever ran, but was the best trial ever 

 made over the Petersburg Course, upon which 

 trials had been run for half a century. 



After it was found he was thoroughly at him- 

 self, Colonel William R. Johnson, in behalf of 

 himself and his racing associates, made an offer 



