88 LIFE WITH THE TKOTTEES. 



a little further to go, and Rarus landed head-and-head with, 

 him. From that point to the half-mile pole they went like 

 a pair of horses in double harness. From there on, how- 

 ever, Rams out-trotted Eastern, beating him up the hill. 

 As we came by Mace's stables, Dave Muckle yelled to me 

 to look out, or I would beat 2:20. By this time Lucille 

 Golddust had passed Fullerton and Great Eastern, and 

 overhauled me in the stretch, but Rams was going easy, 

 and when she came up I spoke to him, and he moved out^ 

 and beat her in the easiest kind of style in 2:20. 



Thus ended the first race that Rams had ever started ia 

 against a field of horses that I considered anything like his 

 class. This performance convinced me that I was right 

 about his ability as a trotting horse. The easy manner in 

 which he handled Fullerton and Great Eastern, when I had 

 really set out to race with them, proved to me conclusively 

 the truth of all that I had thought of him. Up to this time 

 he won every race but one I had driven him, beating all the 

 horses in his own class, and iinally winning a free-for-all 

 race with Goldsmith Maid barred, but all the other good 

 ones in. In doing all this he had not beaten 2:20. This 

 was a great comfort to me at that time, although, as I shall 

 subsequently show, he might as well have gone in 2:16 that 

 day, for all the effect it had on his future career. In talking 

 the matter over with Mr. Conklin that night, I found that 

 he seemed very much pleased in anticipation of the satis- 

 faction he expected to derive from hearing his neighbors, 

 take back all they had said about his being daft when he 

 predicted that Rams would some day beat all the best 

 horses in the country. 



The night after the race I met Mr. Doble in the Gilsey 

 House, New York, and we naturally fell to talking about it. 

 He told me he thought Rams had the making of a wonder- 

 ful horse. Up to this time I had known Budd only in a 

 general way, he being a few years older than myself, and, 

 as I had always been connected with Mace, I never trained 

 in his line, as it were. In the course of our conversation. 



