THE END. 17 



Q 



thirty thousand people on the grounds. The day was 

 blistering hot and the racing a series of processions. John 

 R. Gentry pulled a high-wheeled sulky in 2 :oj ^4 m an 

 effort to reduce the record of 2 :o6*4 made by Johnston 

 years ago, and then started in the free-for-all with Star 

 Pointer and Frank Agan. Star Pointer won in 2:o6 1 /l, 

 2:0434. The other winners were Forest Herr, Grace 

 Hastings and Pastoral. After managing the Grand Cir- 

 cuit meetings in 1897, 1898 and 1899, William B. Fasig 

 retired from racing and devoted the balance of his time 

 to the sale business and developing the farm which he 

 purchased at Brewster, N. Y., in the spring of 1900. 

 There he planned to breed and develop a few colts, with 

 Tom Galliger as trainer, but sickness knocked all of his 

 plans "aglee." The breakdown came late in 1900, and 

 from that date until the end he was confined almost con- 

 tinuously to his home. In May, 1901, he attended the sale 

 at Cleveland and had a severe attack while there. In 

 August, he managed to make a trip to Boston to attend 

 the Grand Circuit meeting of the Xew England Trotting 

 Horse Breeders' Association. Those who saw him there 

 knew that he was passing into the shadow. Hopes of 

 recovery were, however, still held out to him, but this 

 trip, with the exception of a few visits to the Fasig- 

 Tipton Company's office in Xew York, was the last time 

 that he left his home until the end came, at BennysclifTe, 

 on Wednesday evening, February 19, 1902. 



Enthusiasm and superstition were William B. Fasig's 

 two most striking characteristics. He loved a good horse 

 or a man that was fond of one, and had a horror for num- 

 ber thirteen or a cross-eyed girl with red hair. Any one 

 of the four would stop him, and the last two turn him 

 back from any project that he could control. The thirteen 



