58 TIPS AND TOE-TTEIGHTS. 



forty horses in training — a few of them with a record, but mostly- 

 green horses and colts. The track was a mile, and being a private 

 one, I could keep it in the oi'der I wanted. That I was reasonably 

 successful is shown by the trotting of horses I owned or had in 

 charge. Clara Gr. trotted and won the three-minute class in Buffalo, 

 in 1871, making 2:30— 2:26|— 2:26, and could have trotted faster. 

 She won the saddle-race in 2:25, and trotted both without a break. 

 She was prone to leave her feet when I first commenced to drive her, 

 even at a slow gait, though she could trot faster under the saddle, 

 and shoeing had a good deal to do M-ith the change. Ida May had a 

 record of 2:38. She showed ten seconds faster, and would trot 

 through the stretches a 20-gait or better, but I am satisfied that a 

 change in the shoeing to tips would have resulted in a great increase 

 of her speed for the mile. She was a very long strider, and having 

 spmng a quarter-crack — the only horse I had troubled in that way 

 there — she was shod with bar-shoes, though while she wore them she 

 could not trot so fast, and the long sti'ide was lengthened. Nour- 

 mahal won a three-minute race in good time, and she beat Lady Mac 

 a dash of five miles in 13:39, when the track was so soft that the 

 foot was buried in it to the depth of the hoof. It had been frozen 

 the night before and thawed out — the worst kind of mud to retard 

 a horse. John H., in a few months' driving, trotted a half-mile in 

 1:11^, and sold at auction sale for $7,500, and he has since obtained 

 a record of 2.20 ; and I could extend the list through the "string" 

 with a fair showing of speed in nearly all of them. 



The retrospect reveals many troubles which would have been 

 obviated by the use of tips and different-fashioned shoes from those 

 I used at the time, and as it was 1872 before I used toe-weights, 

 until then I was without the benefit of their assistance. It took me 

 months to overcome the tendency in Clara G. to single-foot and hitch 

 in her gait, and during that time I had tried many different shoes. 

 The toe-weight would probably have counteracted the habit in a 

 short time, and I think that a heavy tip would have had the same 

 effect. She trotted very wide behind, and going round the turns she 

 would strike the inside of her hind leg, sometimes as high as the 

 hock, with the edge of the front shoe, and she had to wear shin-boots 



