THE RIDE OF A LIFETIME. 



The soft breezes quivered the leaves that, painted by 

 the autumn sun, were glowing bravely in every shade of 

 red. brown and gold the morning I drove, hitched to a 

 light wagon, a rakish looking bay gelding over the Boule- 

 vard in Cleveland to Wade Park. His thin lively ears 

 pricked and turned and played, and his great intelligent 

 eye glanced from side to side and back at his new driver, 

 as with his easy, trotting jog he stepped along, a king of 

 his race, admired by the many ladies and gentlemen in 

 swell turnouts that met us. There seemed nothing created 

 that he feared. He was bright, cheerful, happy, pleasant, 

 prompt and alert to the slightest touch of the rein. In 

 short, he was that perfection which a road driver may live 

 to an old age and die without finding. 



That bay gelding was Flying Jib, — "the Jib hoss" — 

 the first horse in the world to beat two minutes in harness, 

 one of the soundest, sweetest and most intelligent horses 

 ever foaled, and the fastest horse on the road the world 

 has ever seen. No wonder that Capt. Griffith would never 

 sell "the Jib." We reached the speeding ground at Wade 

 Park on a quiet, trotting jog. The Jib seemed to know 

 the purposes of the smooth, straight stretch, for his ears 

 pricked more lively, and he glanced oftener back to me, 

 poking his nose out in gentle reminder, and if a horse 

 wonders, perhaps wondering "if that guy holding the reins 

 realized that he was sitting behind a horse that could beat 

 anv horse living a brush down the road." The other fel- 

 low came along. I mean the fellow with holders on his 



