128 EVERY MAN HIS OWN TRAINER. 



right here that she is the greatest piece of hprse flesh, accord- 

 ing to her size, on earth. I think she can trot a mile, under 

 favorable circumstances, in 2:15. She is only fourteen and a 

 half hands high, and weighs less than eight hundred pounds. 

 After the second heat the thing was all up, as Whitefoot won 

 the next two heats as she pleased in 2:1S|- and 2:10. Mr. 

 Alvord said to me after the race that perhaps he was not the 

 slickest looking man outside in the world, but was probably 

 the happiest man inside that ever lived. He is like many 

 others — a horse looks so much better to him when he wins 

 than he does when he loses. 



The next week at Buffalo the little mare started a small 

 splint, consequently she was not so good a race mare, but 

 still she was close up to Newton R. in one heat in 2:1 7|-. The 

 track was very hard and seemed to sting her, consec[uently 

 she would not stay on a trot. The hard track also put Newton 

 B. on the dry dock for the balance of the season, and com- 

 pelled me also to let up on the little mare three weeks to get 

 the soreness out of her splint. Then I commenced swim- 

 ming her, as I dare not give her any work on the track. The 

 canal being near by I got a row boat, and took two men 

 with me, one to row the boat, and the other to lead the mare. 

 I took a light pole, eleven feet long, and boared a hole in the 

 end of it, put in a short strap, buckled it into the nose piece 

 of the halter on top of the nose. The man leading the marc 

 got in the stern of the boat. I would find a sloaping bank 

 where she could easily enter the canal. I stood on the bank 

 with my watch out to time them, so she would not be in long 

 enough to tire her at first. The first time she went in she 

 plunged and struggled, was very much frightened, but the 

 man with the pole kept her head up out of the water and 

 could steer her just as he liked. The first time I kept her in 

 three minutes and brought her ashore, and she puffed and 

 blovVed like a porpoise. We scraped the water (^ut of her 

 and throwed the blankets on and walked her five minutes, 

 then pulled the blankets and swam her four minutes again. I 



