EVERY MAN HIS OWN TRAINER. 45 



get, and .cut away in the toe SO it was not wider than your 

 little finger ; then attached to the toe of the shoe one of the 

 Columbus weight spurs made very long so as to come nearly 

 to the hair on the front of the foot, and used a two-ounce 

 weight very high up ; it came within an inch of the coronet. 

 That seemed to make her fold her knee and the difference in 

 the weight of her front shoes seemed to square her and make 

 her hind .legs track. Sometimes I used a' four-ounce toe 

 weight instead of the two in a first heat, when she was a lit- 

 tle rank ; then I would take it off and put on the two ounce. 

 She would go better with that weight high up than she would 

 with any kind of weight low down where we usually put a toe 

 weight. People would often ask me, " Jack, why do you use 

 that weight so high lip on your spur?" All the reply I could 

 make was, " Because she goes better.'' I used a very light 

 shoe on her behind, say six or seven ounces, of equal weight. 

 Most all horses that hit the coronet of the hind foot against 

 the front shoe hit the toe and not the heel, as many suppose 

 they do. Her shoe being cut away in the toe left nothing to 

 hit against and she then would go clear, so I did not have to 

 use even a toe boot on her. But still she had to have a large 

 amount of work before she would show any speed. That, of 

 course, began to tell on her legs, so I said to myself, "old girl, 

 I will try another scheme." When her day came for work I 

 would hitch her double with another horse in the morning, 

 hitch them to the drag and work her from two to three hours 

 putting the track in order, bring her in and do her up nicely 

 as though she had trotted a race, feed her at the usual dinner 

 hour and about two o'clock put the boots and harness on her. 

 Up to this time she had never showed me a mile better than 

 3:04, which was very slow for the time and money I had spent 

 on her, but I had not forgotten the boy that was after the 

 ground-hog, so I kept trying, and the third day after I had 

 worked her as above described to the drag, etc., she stepped 

 off three heats better than 2:40 for me and was as good gaited 

 and gpod behaved as any horse you ever saw. Then I said to 



