LIFE WITH THE TROTTERS. 169 



This a very good story for people who are breeding and 

 training pacers to read whenever they get to thinking they 

 have the only pacer that ever was. Another thing that 

 Impresses itself on my mind is the fact that both these 

 horses were pacing-bred pacers. Of late years nearly all 

 our fast pacers have been trotting-bred, and Jewett, Mike 

 Wilkes, Westmont, Roy Wilkes, and a dozen others that I 

 •could name that have beaten 2:20 a good way, are by trot- 

 ting sires, the Alexander's Abdallah and George Wilkes 

 branches of the Hambletonian family having given us more 

 pacers than any other trotting strain. Still, there has 

 never been a pacer that has gone as good a six-heat race as 

 both Mattie Hunter and Sleepy Tom fought out that day at 

 Rochester, nine years ago. Mattie Hunter is by Piince 

 Pulaski, a pacing horse from Tennessee, and Sleepy Tom 

 was by Tom Rolfe, a descendant of the famous old-time 

 pacing mare Pocahontas, that pulled a wagon in 2:17^ when 

 .she was four months in foal with the colt that afterward 

 sired this very pacer Sleepy Tom. Mattie Hunter's best 

 record was made under the following circumstances: At the 

 July meeting at Pittsburgh in 1881, Maud S., trotted against 

 the watch, and went a very fast mile. The public and the 

 association thought that she would be able, with another 

 trial, to beat it, and they arranged for her to trot against 

 the watch again. On the regular programme Mattie Hunter 

 won the free-for-all pacing race that week, and took the 

 •deciding heat in 2:14f. The association offered an extra 

 purse for her and Sorrel Dan to. pace the day that Maud S. 

 should make her trial against the watch, with an extra 

 inducement if 2:14 was beaten. The race was to be a mile 

 and repeat. Mattie Hunter won in straight heats, going 

 the first mile in 2:12f, and the second in 2:15f, thereby 

 winning the race and the extra money that was given for time. 



One of the best races Mattie ever paced, taking into con- 

 sideration the slowness of the track, was at Springfield, 

 where she defeated Lucy and Rowdy Boy a contest of six 

 heats, going the last mile in 2:15|. I have mentioned only 



