AND OTHER SKETCHES 167 



dian-bred, competing with the flower of Kentucky and 

 Tennessee, to say nothing of the big studs of New York 

 and New Jersey. 



Another good one was Roddy Pringle, by Helmbold, 

 who, after winning the Queen's Plate in 1883, beating 

 among others the speedy Princess by Princeton out of 

 Roxaline (later a noted smasher of records on the Amer- 

 ican turf), raced as a gelding for many years, and was 

 still winning in the nineties. 



Many good horses, both province-bred and imported, 

 ran under the joint control of Mr. Pringle and Dr. Smith, 

 and although there were in Ontario, during that trying 

 period, other men to whom much credit is due, it is doubt- 

 ful if any achieved more than these two did with the 

 means at their disposal and in face of the difficulties of 

 all kinds which they had to encounter. 



Many men are in the racing game for the money, while 

 others, ' ' having the price, ' ' as the saying goes, take it up 

 as a fad or a fancy, caring little what it costs them. Both 

 of these classes are useful and necessary, but in Ontario 

 thirty years and more ago, there were few, if any, of the 

 latter sort, while the former, if given full swing, would 

 soon have ended the sport. 



The racing men of the present generation owe, in a 

 greater measure than most of them realize, the preserva- 

 tion of the Ontario turf to the single-minded efforts of a 

 little coterie of keen, clean sportsmen, who loved racing 

 and the race horse for themselves and not for gain or 

 glory. 



I have referred to our associations at the important 

 racing centres of the United States, and no more pleasant 

 days ever were than those we passed together at Sara- 

 toga, many jovial hours being spent on the verandah of 

 Charles Reed's splendid residence on the avenue leadijig 

 to the race course in the company of the Master of 

 **Fairview." Stories enough to fill this book were told 

 there. The host himself could tell a good one, and many 

 of his friends were good seconds. ** Charley" Reed, as 

 he was generally called by his intimates, was a first-class 



