TROTTING RACES. 95 
is, and going to a gallop or a run, he must be 
“caught” by pulling his head to one side, so that he 
will have to come back to a trot in order to keep his 
balance; and in extreme cases it will be necessary to 
pull him first this way, and then that. The break 
does not come without premonitory signals; there 
is a sort of general unsteadiness of the horse’s gait, 
when the change is in contemplation, and at the last 
moment he moves his ears backward. “The sign of 
a coming break,” says Hiram Woodruff, that excel- 
lent writer from whom I have quoted so much al- 
ready, “will be discovered by watching the head and 
ears of the horse. The attention of the driver ought 
always to be fixed upon the head of his horse. Many 
a heat is lost by neglect of this matter. A driver is 
seen coming up the home stretch a length or a length 
and a half ahead. Both the horses are tired, but 
the leading one could win. The driver, however, 
when he gets where the carriages are, turns his head 
to look at the ladies, or to see whether they are 
looking at him. Just then the horse gives a twitch 
with his ears; the driver does n’t see it; up flies the 
trotter, and the ugly man behind holds his horse 
square, and wins by a neck.” 
Of all muscular pleasures, there is none, perhaps, 
more fine and delicate than this of the skilful reins- 
man. Whirled along at the rate of a mile in two 
minutes and a half, he keeps his trotter steady by a 
slight turn of the wrist, thus moving the bit in the 
animal’s responsive mouth, and so distracting his 
attention and jogging his memory. If there is any 
parallel to this exercise, it will probably be found 
in those clever manipulations of rod and line by 
