sulkies, these horses were speeded at fairs and other 

 horse shows under the saddle ; and, as the pacing gait 

 was of no value, in order to realize anything out of 

 their development for speed the horses must be con- 

 verted from pacers to trotters, and to accomplish this 

 with the crude facilities then at hand and the limited 

 knowledge I had upon the subject many incidents that 

 now seem amusing occurred. I knew of a horse that 

 could pace fast under the saddle and I believed I could 

 break him to harness and convert him to the trotting 

 gait, and so I bought him for $200, which was a large 

 price for a green, unbroken horse. I soon broke him 

 to harness and commenced my experiment in teaching 

 him to trot. I understood that to make a natural 

 pacer trot he must carry an unnatural weight on his 

 front feet, so I went to work contriving how to accom- 

 plish this result. I had him shod in front with shoes 

 weighing one and a half pounds each, then I had a 

 pair of leather sacks made that would each hold a 

 pound of shot, then filled these sacks with shot, soaked 

 them thoroughly in water, then buckled them around 

 the front feet, thus compelling him to carry an extra 

 weight of two and a half pounds on each front foot. 

 With this weight he would square away and trot all 

 right on the road, but when I tried him on the track 

 it was so short that he would not, or could not, handle 

 himself, and would get tangled up, and I was compelled 

 to work him almost entirely on the road. He de- 

 veloped speed very rapidly and within sixty days 

 from the time I bought him I took him to Nashville 

 and started him in a trotting race against four or five 

 other horses, and, notwithstanding his handicap by 

 reason of this heavy weight, he trotted a good race, 

 winning second money, and undoubtedly had speed 



