g2 THE TWO-MINUTE TROTTERS 



tempting to say how he would prefer to have his conforma- 

 tion changed if it could be done. 



No photograph so far taken of him, in harness, does him 

 full justice. Tommy Murphy has one the execution of which 

 is most excellent but it is not at all a picture of the horse. It 

 has the same fault that most of the others have in that it 

 makes him look about as big as a bamboo pole around the 

 flanks. And it has the further fault that it makes his neck 

 look like it belonged to some other trotter. So have most 

 of the rest so far exhibited. The one used in this volume 

 is the best that has been found and it fails to show this great 

 young trotter as he really is and as rugged and full made. 

 Tommy Murphy explains the drawn-up "spindly" look 

 shown in the photographs to the fact that they were snapped 

 at a time when the colt was getting ready for a long breath 

 and had almost entirely emptied his lungs as well as con- 

 tracted his flank muscles. It should be added that the faulty 

 photographs are all of him standing and not of him in 

 motion. 



It is doubtful if he will ever be any better-looking than 

 he now is for if so he will be more than a picture, for that 

 he is. There might have been a time when he would have 

 been considered too handsome to amount to much. But 

 that no longer obtains as an opinion among horsemen. We 

 have had too many good-looking, too many handsome fast 

 trotters in recent years. Much has been said about his gait 

 and no more need be added except that if one cares to com- 

 pare it with Lee Axworthy the chief diff^erence is that Arion 

 Guy does not "wing" with either front foot nor does he go so 

 high. Whether he is "Childs-gaited" or "Murphy-gaited" 

 those who care to do so may decide for themselves. There 

 is one fact that cannot be erased from the records and that 

 is that he is two-minute gaited. 



Reference has been made to the speed shown in spots in 

 the race for the Kentucky Futurity which Arion Guy won, 

 hence there is but little to be added. It is however worth 

 while to say that the time made in either of the fast miles, 

 2:04'14 both the first and the third, was not a measure of 

 the speed of the winner. 



