LIFE WITH THE TROTTERS. 33 



rough-and-ready sort of man, and those attributes of his 

 character, no doubt, prevented him from extending his 

 sphere of operations; but when he was in his jirime no man 

 could outdrive him. He was a good deal such a character 

 as were Jim Eockey, "Nosey" Brown, Mike Roden, etc. — 

 a class of men who could get up behind a horse they had 

 never before seen and in almost every instance drive him as 

 well or better than the man who had put in months of time 

 training the animal. In other words, they could get out of 

 a horse all there was in him, being natural reinsmen. 

 McLaughlin was ready to take any chance to win. 



This was the summer of 1874, and the only horse I had 

 , in charge was Kansas Chief. A crippled horse, by the way, 

 is a handful for any man to train, and I have told other 

 drivers, friends of mine, that with one horse that needed 

 constant attention there was plenty of opportunity for all 

 the talent the trainer has at his command — in other words, 

 so many different conditions exist with an ailing horse that 

 there is hardly a phase of the business that will not come 

 up in his particular case. 



I had as groom for Kansas Chief a man of the name of 

 Mike Ward, who had served his time under such well- 

 known trainers as Horace Jones, Sam McLaughlin, and 

 Mace; and what Mike did not know about taking care of an 

 ailing horse, or one of any kind, was not in the books. Mr. 

 Simmons advised with me as to the plan of campaign. 

 "Don't work your horse too hard," he said. "Go easy, 

 trot a few races, and let the Chief get himself into condi- 

 tion. Try and have your horse in good shape by the time 

 the big circuit opens, and if he is then worth trotting we 

 will get some money with him." I followed this advice, 

 trotting Kansas a couple of easy races at Jackson and Sagi- 

 naw, Mich., and Columbus, Ohio, and then we went to 

 Indianapolis, where the Chief won the first race of his 

 career with me. It was a well-contested one from start to 

 finish, there being plenty of betting and the purse the first 

 big one we had come to. Everyone was anxious to get first 



