best men to condition, train and drive horses I have 

 ever known. I went through the grand circuit with 

 him, and the lessons I received under his instruction 

 have been of great benefit to me in my career since 

 that time. This experience gave me more confidence 

 in myself, and the next season (1875) I opened a pub- 

 lic training stable at Nashville, where I handled a 

 number of horses and had several that could beat 

 2.40, and, as fast records were not as numerous in 

 those days as they have since become, I thought I did 

 pretty well. While training my stable that season I 

 met Major Campbell Brown of Spring Hill, Tennes- 

 see. He was the grandest and best-informed man in 

 everything that pertained to the breeding of fast har- 

 ness horses I have ever known ; and I deem it but 

 just to say that no man in the State of Tennessee has 

 done more than he did in raising the standard of the 

 light-harness horse in that State to the position which 

 it has since occupied. At that time I made an ar- 

 rangement with him to handle his horses that fall. 

 Among those he then owned was a black mare called 

 Alice West, by Almont 33. She was very handsome 

 and stylish and I soon found that she had a great deal 

 of speed. I took her to the fair at Columbia, with 

 several others, that fall, and took eleven premiums out 

 of twelve entries ; soon after this I took two or three 

 show horses and two trotters and went to the fairs in 

 Georgia and Alabama. One of the trotters was a 

 horse called East Lynn, who could trot in about 2.40, and 

 I sold him at the first place I went. The other was a 

 mare called Diana. I started her in the green classes 

 and wound up in the free for all. I gave her a record 

 of 2.33, and she never lost a race on the trip. I returned 

 to Major Brown feeling that I had been quite successful. 



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