ANDY AND I. 267 



At breakfast, on looking over the Paris edition of the 

 New York Herald, we discovered that there was a trot- 

 ting meeting in progress at Vincennes that afternoon, an 

 event bound to capture two trotting cranks like ourselves. 

 It was a lovely drive of seven miles, part of the distance 

 through public parks, to the race-course, and on our ar- 

 rival there nearlv the first man we met was Horace Brown. 

 His instructions aided us in getting a good location on the 

 grandstand, which cost for each about $5 in American 

 money — yet our race-goers kick "like steers in the corn" 

 because they have to pay $1. The $5 gave the privilege of 

 visiting the paddocks, and there we took our first lessons 

 in French methods of preparing horses for racing. Barr- 

 ing the big event of the day, which was open to horses 

 of all nations, and in which Brown had the American 

 hcrse Buford, all the races on the card were for Euro- 

 pean-bred horses and were to saddle. The distance of 

 each varied from two to three mile dashes, most of the 

 events being for colts and fillies — three and four-year- 

 olds. Now, you can form an idea of what is expected of 

 a youngster on the trotting turf in France. The weight 

 of the riders seemed to cut no figure, and varied from 

 that which could almost go through the mails for a two- 

 cent stamp to a two hundred-pound lusty fellow who rode 

 a horse from his ears to his tail. It seemed to me that 

 I never saw so many poor riders in my life, and the sight 

 of a great strapping fellow with whip and spur on a lit- 

 tle two-year-old, away behind the leaders nearly a quarter 

 of a mile, yet being punished at almost every stride, was 

 painfully absurd. 



There is a sort of covered paddock in which the horses 

 competing each day are "corralled." It includes a min- 

 iature track for leading before the race, and walking dur- 



