38 TIPS AND TOE-WEIGHTS. 



feet are slid along, especially when horses go " close to the ground." 

 But, determined to make tlie.test as thorougli as possible, when the 

 hind shoes were worn entirely through, I substituted tips, expecting 

 that they would not do. These were set on the 13th of January, 

 and the 4th of February they were worn entirely througli, without 

 the heels being affected. They wei-e wider, and not so thick as the 

 tips in front, and the nails were left in the horn just as they were 

 driven, minus the heads. At the date of writing this it has just 

 been a month since the heels of the hind feet were exposed, and there 

 has not been tlie slightest soreness, though scarcely a day has elajised 

 that he has not been used on the road. 



Two of the trotting colts — fillies — had been shod the Fall previous 

 with ordinary shoes ; the other never wore anything but tips while I 

 had him. The fillies were jogged a short time barefooted, and when 

 the tips were put on they were prepared so as to fasten the Eureka 

 toe-weights on them. Both improved very rapidly before the 

 weights were applied, and with a six-ounce weight there was an 

 increase of speed. One of them was by a son of Mambrino Chief, 

 out of a Blackbird mare ; the other by a Blackbird horse, her dam a 

 thoroughbred mare. The former was a rapid, short-gaited filly ; 

 the other the reverse, going with her head low and a long, sweeping 

 stride. The Mambrino I tried with a nine-ounce weight on each 

 fore foot, and she trotted three quarters of a mile in 2:04 — a rate of 

 2:45 to the mile. The year before she lamed herself in the hind leg 

 in the stall, and at times she would show a little of the same trouble, 

 and after this fast drive she favored her leg so much that I threw 

 her up, and she was turned out to run through the Winter. The 

 other filly also improved rapidly, but never showed such speed, being 

 able to trot the mile in about 2:50. Both of these wei-e shod with the 

 ordinary shoe behind. The third one was a colt by the same Black- 

 bird horse that got the filly, his dam a grand-daughter of Rysdyk's 

 Hambletonian. He came from Chicago the Fall before with a coat 

 like the winter raiment of a buflalo, and was a little " chunk of a 

 colt " which evidently had not been favored with much to eat save 

 the sour prairie grass which is the main feed in these pastui'es. He 

 was full of worms and sickly during the Spring, but grew fast, 



