198 



TALKS OF THE TURF. 



care and preparation would be like giving a set formula 

 to train every horse by and expect the best results. The 

 old Chicago track, at a certain stage after a rain, was 

 one of the fastest that ever I saw, and strange to say, its 

 particularly fast stage would be the slowest stage of the 

 Cleveland track, and the latter would be dead and cuppy. 

 Later on, as they became drier, the Chicago track would 

 get too hard, and the Cleveland track get right. I think 

 that the Cleveland track stays in condition a longer time 

 without rain than almost any in the country. Lexing- 

 ton, Ky., has a wonderful track. It is of natural soil, 

 and very fast soil at that, and, I am told, gets but little 



Fig. S — Best Method for laying out turns of mile track for amateurs, with a 

 wire four hundred and twenty and seventeen hundredths feet (— 420 feet _' 9 

 inches) long. (For half-mile tracks reduce one-half. See Fig. 2). 



care. Although, during the training season — which com- 

 mences there early and continues late — there are prob- 

 ably on an average one hundred horses trained over it 

 daily, and nothing has been done to it in the way of 

 renewing the surface for over ten years, yet it is as lively 

 and fresh as any track in America, and I doubt if there 

 is a faster one. Any other track I know of, with the 

 same use, would be utterly and irrevocably worn out and 



