THE TROTTING-HORSE OF AMERICA. 39 



I am going to produce is onlj' calculated to be useful when 

 used as a stepping-stone to experience, I do not really under- 

 value it, as some may think. Besides, I intend to make it 

 interesting to the general reader, as well as to him who is 

 in quest of the rules and maxims of the trainer's art. I 

 also wish it to be understood at the outset, that very many 

 clever horsemen will differ with me in regard to some of the 

 things I shall lay down as proper to be pursued. I know it 

 wiU be very often said by some of my associates of years 

 .gone by, as they read these pages, "'Old Blocks' is wrong 

 in regard to so-and-so ; " but I can assure the reader that I 

 shall recommend nothing but what I have tried, and in a 

 measure proved myself. 



It is more than thirty years since I began to handle trot- 

 ting-horses, and more than five-and-twenty since I had 

 charge of Dutchman, the best, take him for all in all, of the 

 old-time trotters. Some-things are done differently now from 

 what they were then; yet there has not been any great 

 change in the method we then pursued, nor has there been, 

 in my opinion, as much change and improvement in our 

 horses as some imagine. It is true that there are more fast 

 trotters now than there ever were before, that the best time 

 has been much cut down of late years, and that the driving 

 on the road is a deal more rapid now than it was then. But 

 then it is to be remembered that the tracks are now much 

 better ordered than they were in former times, that the 

 vehicles for trotting have been much lightened and improved, 

 and that a corresponding improvement in roads and road- 

 wagons has taken place. Besides, there are hundreds of 

 horses trained nowadays to one that was handled by a really 

 competent man then ; and thus a greater amount of speed 

 is developed in the multitude. And though it is not alto- 

 gether clear why it should be so, there is no doubt in my 

 mind about this, viz., that, as the excellence of the multitude 

 increases, the excellence of the best among them will reach 

 a higher standard. Except in exceptional cases, it is easiei 



