Il6 THE TWO-MINUTE PACERS 



horse I should be game enough to take him as the owner had 

 everything to lose while there could not be any loss to me. 



"For me Dan kept big and strong and took his work very 

 kindly. His fastest mile before leaving the farm for exhi- 

 bition work would be around 2:04. I do not believe in the 

 seven years I had him he beat 2:04 more than once in his 

 preparatory training. I worked him fast halves, say in 59 

 seconds to one minute with quarters in 29 seconds but never 

 asked for a mile at top speed until he was going for the 

 money. He showed that this method suited him pretty well. 

 He had an early engagement at Galesburg, 111., and his best 

 previous mile was in just 2:04 yet he paced at Galesburg 

 in 1:57^, the last half in 571/4 seconds. That same year 

 he paced in 1:55. 



"In warming up for an exhibition I would work him four 

 heats, sometimes more, none faster than 2:10. He was a 

 horse that observed everything, looked the grand stand over 

 carefully and saw everything on the race track. The instant 

 the runner would enter the track he knew it and would shake 

 his head and play, even if he were a half mile away. He 

 took tilings decidedly easy until the runner turned with him. 

 I would score him a couple of times and then go. He could 

 follow pace better than any other horse I ever knew. His 

 nose would be within three inches of the back of the driver 

 of the runner the entire mile. 



"He was never nervous nor excited or anything different 

 on his exhibition days from what he was on other days. If 

 I were going to attempt to break a record with him I would 

 try to get a fast mile — two minutes or better — two days 

 ahead of the day of the effort; in other words I would try 

 to get a fast mile on Tuesday, say, if he was to go on Thurs- 

 day and not later than Friday, as he went but the one fast 

 mile in his exhibition. He invariably would give me a great 

 mile under that system. I have always figured that an 

 exhibition horse was a great deal like a thoroughbred in the 

 matter of training. It is a question of speed. But they lose 

 it in a very few hours so I figured that a horse's best effort 

 would be made with one day, perhaps two days, between a 

 fast work mile and a fast exhibition mile where only one mile 



