MY HORSE AND BUGGY 



mount's chance. Before we'd gone the first two hundred 

 yards I was half that distance behind the others and 

 the lot had passed the post before I was much more 

 than half-way home. All the boys laughed at me. 

 Rickaby and Sam Loates were the worst ! The 

 owner came to the jockeys' room after the race, but 

 when I saw him I couldn't help saying, " You had 

 better get away from me." 



I wouldn't even look at him, I was so mad. 



" I'll sell my horse, for I've got another one, ten lb. 

 better than he is," he said after a time. 



" Then sell him," I answered, " at whatever you 

 can get for him. If you have any relations in the meat 

 for animals line of business you'll know what to do." 



I acknowledge it now : I couldn't stand the ridi- 

 cule : Fancy Sloan not being able to get a gallop out 

 of a horse ! I was properly taken in — in fact it was 

 the worst take-down of my life with one exception, 

 and I may as well tell that story here too. 



I was living at Redbank in New Jersey, with 

 Johnny Campbell. It was the ambition of all the boys 

 about a stable, and especially those who had a little 

 bit of money, to possess a trotter and a buggy. I had 

 a bank roll of about seven hundred and fifty dollars. 

 Well, one day when I was idling about, a fellow I had 

 never seen before went past me slowly in a buggy. 

 A boy who had come to our boarding-house two days 

 before — he was " planted " there I fancy — said that 

 he knew him. " Here's So-and-so," said the boy ; 

 " he's a big horse-dealer." 



The guy called out to me, " Like a spin ? " and 

 having nothing to do that afternoon in I hopped. 

 We went off at a fine lick ; that horse could trot. 

 After a while I said to my new friend : " Look how 

 he's sweating ; my ! it's pouring off him." 



55 



