78 THE TWO-MINUTE TROTTERS 



every year, but he declines to go into any extended preach- 

 ment as to how he trains trotters. There is no doubt that he 

 would be a wise counselor for any man who was having 

 training troubles, and that he would go far out of his way, on 

 request, to be of assistance to any one. But talking about 

 himself is another matter entirely. And that explains why he 

 disappeared that great day at Lexington, and disproves the 

 belief that he had gone away to hold to his overflowing heart, 

 lest it burst under the new and valued honors that came to 

 him. It may be possible that he did not hold the new record 

 as highly as did some of his friends. Records had come to 

 be quite common to him, for more than fifty-seven "bests" 

 have been accredited to him in his career. 



Getting back to Peter Manning. He had been pretty well 

 trained and mannered before he joined the stable of Mr. 

 Murphy, but he did develop two slight faults that had to be 

 corrected before he could go to the races. One of them was 

 that peculiar one which many trotters and pacers try to put 

 over, and which consisted in wanting to turn one way only. 

 He was soon taught that he must obey orders, and no great 

 difficulty was encountered in teaching him the lesson. The 

 other consisted in a desire, put into action, to rush away at 

 speed whenever he was turned to score. To correct that fault 

 his trainer used all the arts of persuasion and all the means at 

 his command except punishment — that was not called into 

 action. But he did resort to the rope halter, and in a very 

 short time Peter had learned that he would not be permitted 

 to do the thing he so much wanted to do. And he took that 

 lesson in his matter-of-fact way and did not have to be taught 

 it again. 



At first he was exceedingly shy of strangers and did not 

 care to have them about him. They were not at all welcome 

 in his stall, and when they appeared at the door he would 

 make his way to the farthest corner and refuse to have any- 

 thing to do with them. Nor has he entirely gotten over that 

 peculiarity, although he will visit in a most friendly way a 

 great deal of the time. It is not at all unlikely that the sugar 

 which has been carried to him by so many of his admirers 



