188 THE TROTTING-nORSE OF AMERICA. 



ing was a very nice one, which had been huilt by Mr. Joseph 

 Godwin, and only weighed 741bs. It had got doubled up, 

 principally from Eipton's hard pulling in the first and second 

 heats. In order to change it, I borrowed a wagon of Fred. 

 Johnson, and that only weighed four pounds more than the 

 other. These two were the earliest of the very light wag- 

 ons : there was not another like them at that time; Instead 

 of letting Ripton cool out, I just took him out of one wag- 

 on and put him into the other, and jogged him up and down 

 the backstretch until it was time for the next heat. When 

 a horse is old and a little crippled, it does not answer to let 

 him get cool and stiff between the heats. I like to keep 

 such an one warm and limber. The previous exertion, by 

 starting the circulation and setting up violent action aU 

 through the system has counteracted, for the time being, 

 the stiffness, soreness, and lameness which are in a measure 

 chronic ; and, this being so, it seems to me advisable to keep 

 steam up a little during the interval between heats. Hav- 

 ing kept Ripton jogging until we were called up for the 

 third heat, I gave him a sharp brush of half a mile prepara- 

 tory to it. In the course of that enlivening brush, I cut him 

 with the whip twice pretty hard ; and he went away from it 

 like a bullet. This was the first and last time that I ever 

 whipped the little horse, except in the finish of a heat. He 

 was the last horse in the world to want it, save in the nip 

 and tuck of a long and desperate race. His style of going 

 was very free and determined, head up and tail right on end 

 over his quarters, and cutting through the air with a sharp 

 Bwish as he worked it from side to side, just as a fighting- 

 dog does his when he has got a punishing-hold. 



Ripton was now boiling hot and well settled. At the first 

 coming up, we got the word ; and, shooting him out, I took 

 the pole from Spicer before we had gone seventy-five yards. 

 Of course Ripton had now a good lead ; and, trotting in hia 

 old style, he was never headed, and won the heat easily in 

 2m. 38s. Such a shout as there was when the little horse 



