EVERY MAN HIS OWN TRAINER. 73 



After this race I took him home, removed his shoes, put 

 a h'ght blister around the coronet of his front feet so as to 

 keep them growing and in a good healthy condition, as I had 

 before had considerable trouble with them. I had by this 

 time made up my mind he was really worth a good wintering, 

 and I gave it to him, that is, I cooled him out with soft feed, 

 reduced his grain about one-half, gave him about four to six 

 quarts of carrots every day until the weather got cold — they 

 are too refrigerating a nature to feed in cold weather ; I don't 

 like to feed them or any other roots in freezing weather. In 

 fact, only a few of them at any time, as I think too much of 

 them makes a horse too sappy and the muscles flabby. I 

 gave him a walk of half a mile every day in a tan-bark ring ; 

 his feet grew and spread at the heels. I kept him in this way 

 until about the middle of January, then I put, on his shoes 

 and commenced to jog him. For the first ten days I jogged 

 him every other day three or four miles, the intervening day 

 I walked him in the ring. After ten days I jogged him every 

 day when it was fit weather for a horse to be out. When 

 spring came and I commenced to work him on the track, I 

 found he had improved very much from the year before, and 

 I think it was on account of his feet, as they had got by this 

 time in a natural state and seemed to be sound. He was not 

 looking for a soft place to set his foot down, but hit right out 

 straight and square — in fact, he was another horse. This 

 spring I trotted him some races over half-mile tracks at El- 

 mira and Bradford, Pa., as I did not care to give him hard 

 races early in the season, so I gave him these races to season 

 him up, for the benefit of the horse, regardless of finances, as 

 I expected to look after the money later in the season, and I 

 did look after it and found it. I started him his first race over 

 a mile track at Springfield, Mass., in the latter end of the 

 Grand Circuit, in the 2:25 class. He competed in a large field 

 of horses. One of the contesting horses was the gray gelding 

 Don, driven by J. J, Bowen, of Boston. I was not 

 anxious to give my horse a hard race. I placed my faith in 



