94 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 
has the required combination of sympathy and force, 
the trotter is quick to recognize his master and ready 
to obey him. 
“One half of a horse’s speed,” wrote Mr. George 
Wilkes, “is in the mind of his rider or driver. 
When it is known to the world that a horse has 
made a mile a second or half-second faster than it 
was ever made before, some rider of some other 
horse, nerving himself with the knowledge of the 
fact, and infusing that knowledge into his horse by 
dint of his own enthusiasm, sends kim a second or 
two faster still; and the result of the mental emu- 
lation is a permanent improvement which never is 
retraced. Hiram Woodruff was the first to take this 
mental grip of the powers of the trotting horse; and 
the result in his case was, that, by dint of his own 
mind, he carried him triumphantly over the gap 
which les between 2.40 and 2.18.” 
“Dan Mace,” said Woodruff himself, speaking of 
another famous reinsman, now dead, “is very reso- 
lute, and the horses that he handles know it.” 
To drive a trotter with art is, first, to get from 
him the highest speed of which he is capable; 
secondly, to keep him from making a break; and, 
thirdly, to bring him back to the trot with as little 
loss as possible after a break has actually occurred. 
To do this well requires a light and “sensational” 
hand, a sympathetic intelligence, and a vast deal of 
practice. The break is prevented, sometimes by 
restraining the animal with voice and rein, when it 
is simply a case of too much eagerness, but more 
often by moving the bit in his mouth. If the break 
happens, the horse “leaving his feet,” as the phrase 
