200 OLD-TIME TROTTERS. 



proved so intractable, so flighty, so harem-scarem, and, to come 

 to the true expression, so worthless to her original owners, was 

 favored with more advantages than she had previously enjoyed. 

 She was not only introduced to the very best society of fast 

 goers on the Bloomingdale and Long Island roads, but she was 

 taught that when flinging herself out " with exuberant and 

 superabundant spirit " (all over ' the road, as it were) to play 

 her limbs in a true line, and give her extraordinary qualities a 

 chance to show their true value. "Whenever she made a skip, 

 a quick admonition and a steady check brought her to her 

 senses, and when in the frenzy of excitement in being chal- 

 lenged by some high-flyer of the road, she would, as the 

 horsemen used to say, "travel over herself" and "go up" into 

 the air, she was steadied and settled down by a firm rein into 

 steady trotting and good behavior instantly. 



The crazy, flighty, half -racking and half -trotting little mare 

 soon became a true stepper, and abandoned her confused 

 " rip-i-ty clip-i-ty " way of going, substituting in its stead a 

 clean, even, long, low, locomotive trotting stroke. 



Many a man, on coming up to a tavern after having been 

 beaten by her, would say to her owner, " That's a mighty nice 

 little mare of yours, and if she were only big enough to stand 

 hard work, you might expect a good deal from her." 



There was at that time, as there have ever since been, many 

 horses of great repute upon the roads in the vicinity of New 

 York, and among those who occasionally came in contact with 

 the little bay mare was one of considerable speed, called the 

 "Waite Pony. 



This Waite Pony received the greatest surprise of his life 

 one afternoon in the summer that Flora " came out " — 1850 — 

 by her beating him to a stand still on a mile stretch of the 

 road. This deed of the little mare led to an after matched 

 road-race with the pony, which was virtually the first race of 

 her life, and she captured it very handily. As, however, the 

 time made in this race was over three minutes, it did not in- 



