105 



started. She was a very game and fast little mare, and bu^i 

 for an infirmity in her feet would undoubtedly have been a 

 star performer and materially lowered her record of 2:18^. 

 After the finish of the last heat, Capt. John DeMass, a 

 turf celebrity, and who, as the owner of tugs, sailing ves- 

 sels, game roosters, and trotting and running horses, has 

 been prominent on the sporting horizon for the best part of 

 half a century, and is to this day considered the best assist- 

 ant in a horse race of any man on the turf, called me to 

 the Judges' stand. In a few well-chosen words the Captain 

 presented me with a handsome bouquet that he said had 

 heen left there for Rarus by a lady, who had forgotten 

 to say whether the gift was on account of the fast time 

 or the slow time in which the horse had gone, a remark 

 that seemed to me a very proper commentary on the last 

 heat. 



From Detroit we shipped to Chicago and trotted Rarus a 

 race against Nettie, winning it with the best mile 2:23J. 

 At Cleveland we struck Lucille Golddust, Cozette, and Albe- 

 marle, and here Rarus made another great improvement 

 in his record, trotting the three heats in 2:18i, 2:18, 2:18|, 

 the three being better than any previous mile he had trotted 

 in a race. At Buffalo, the next week the same horses 

 started again, but the best mile that Lucille could make 

 Rarus go was the third, 2:19f. Two days later 1 started 

 him against LuciUe and Nettie in a free-to-all race, the first 

 event having been for horses of the 2:20 class, and this time 

 Green's mare made him go the second mile in 2:18. Then 

 we went to Rochester, where Rarus trotted a wonderfully 

 good race, and before alluding to that in detail, I will tell 

 something of the manner in which I worked him while he 

 was making this remarkable increase in speed. I gave him 

 nothing in the way of training except very light jogging, 

 with easy miles between 2:30 and 2:25, but at the end of 

 every mile I would brush him a hundred yards or so as fast 

 as he could go. I reduced the number of miles in his work 

 but kept giving it to him oftener — that is to say, I would 



