26 THE TWO-MINUTE TROTTERS 



without a record and with no education and development to 

 season her. The majority of horses that have held the 

 world's records are horses that have been campaigned from 

 one year to two, three and four years, which is necessary to 

 develope muscle, lungs and everything pertaining to endur- 

 ance. And, again, Lou Dillon had more to contend with 

 than almost any other horse. The days she looked good, 

 perhaps the best, she would go to wagon and I do not believe 

 any horse, especially a double-gaited one wants to be chop- 

 ping at world's records one day with an amateur driver, to 

 wagon, and the next time to sulky with professional driving. 

 Different hitches, different drivers, let them be ever so good, 

 do not make a good system for the training of a two-minute 

 trotter. 



"While Lou Dillon was a perfectly gaited trotter, she 

 was not in the beginning, for then she was a very ordinary 

 gaited mare. She was, as I have said, double-gaited; she 

 rolled, or paddled with the right front foot and one of her 

 worst faults of gait was that she speedy-cut very badly. 

 She began to learn to trot with a twelve-ounce shoe forward 

 and four-ounce toe-weight. After she showed some speed, 

 I saw she was too light to carry much weight, so I gradually 

 reduced the weight of her front shoes and put very light 

 bell quarter boots on her. The roll of the boots seemed to 

 answer the same purpose as the toe-wieghts she had pre- 

 viously carried. For a long time she was quite mixed gaited 

 and would rather pace than trot. Then I put a very light 

 rim pad under each front shoe and that helped her very 

 much. The bell quarter boots and the rim pads were of 

 great importance to her, for her gait became flat and even 

 and every time I shod her I kept putting on shoes some 

 lighter than she had been carrying. 



"When she trotted the mile in two minutes at Readville, 

 she had on 6 ounce shoes forward and 4 ounce shoes behind, 

 with a 314 inch toe and an angle of 48. Behind, her toes 

 were the same length as the front ones and the angle was 

 5L I always kept her feet at about the same length and 

 angle but kept reducing the weight of her shoes and when 

 she trotted in 1:581/4 she wore 41/2 ounce shoes in front 



