LIFE WITH THE TROTTERS. 67 



I cannot positively say, but on October 12, of tlie same 

 year, Rarus appeared in the race at Prospect Park, where 

 he struck a much better class of horses, his opponents being 

 the little bay mare Adelaide (of whom I shall have more 

 to say hereafter), Falmouth Boy, Roadmaster, Volunteer 

 Maid, T. J. Stevens, Compeer, Efiie Dean, Lady Trimble, 

 and Carrie White. The race was a very hotly contested 

 one, six heats being required to settle the question. Earns 

 won the first heat in 2:32^; then Falmouth Boy took the 

 second and third heats, each mile being trotted in 2:34. 

 Adelaide then went to the front, trotting the fourth in 

 2:80^, and the fifth in 2:32, after which the race was post- 

 poned until the following day, when Earns came out with 

 renewed speed, and captured the sixth and seventh heats in 

 2:30 and 2:30i. 



The horse was kept at Prospect Park, and two weeks 

 later started in another race over same track against a field 

 of five, the only one of the lot that ever became promi- 

 nent being the black mare May Bird, the daughter of 

 George Wilkes, that afterward proved herself one of the 

 best all-around performers of her speed I have ever seen, 

 inasmuch as she obtained a saddle record of 2:19f , a harness 

 record of 2:21, and drew a wagon a mile in 2:24J. These 

 records were all made in hotly-contested races. May Bird 

 was afterward sold to Mr. Eobert Bonner, a man who has 

 paid out nearly half a million dollars in cash for trotl^rs, 

 owning at one time Earns, Dexter, and Maud S. In this 

 race at Prospect Park, May Bird set the pace rather faster 

 than Earns had been going, winning the first heat in 2:27. He 

 took the second heat in 2:30, and in the third he trotted a 

 mile in 2 :28|, this being the first time that he had beaten 2 :30. 

 May Bird beat him out in the fourth heat, but, with his 

 usual resolution, the big bay horse came back faster in the 

 fifth mile, and won by a neck in 2:30^. These were two 

 good races for a horse that had not been asked to beat three 

 minutes until a few weeks previous, but on the 30tli of 

 October he was pulled out again, and trotted another race 



