LIFE ATITH THE TROTTEES. 175 



to a postponement, saying I thouglit it inhuman to compel 

 horses to trot over a track like that, and pointing out that 

 I had just paid a long price for my horse, and was afraid 

 that I might ruin him. The gentlemanly judge, whom I 

 shall never forget, gave me a pretty short answer, said he 

 thought the track was too good if anything, and cautioned 

 me to bring my horse out and use my best endeavors to 

 win. This last suggestion he might as well have kept to 

 himself, as I had my money on Wedgewood, and did not 

 intend to give up' vdthout a fight. The other gentlemen who 

 thought they had such good mud horses were a little sur- 

 prised when Wedgewood went out in the morning and won 

 the fifth heat in 2:31 going through the slush like a duck on 

 its way to breakfast. He was beaten the next heat after a 

 driving finish and was as tired a horse as ever I saw. An 

 old friend of mine, J. C. Kelly, who had some money on 

 him, told me that my chances for winning the race were 

 gone, that he did not believe it possible for any horse that 

 was as tired as Wedgewood was to go another heat fast 

 enough to win. I told him that I was not worrying about 

 getting beaten,butTwas sure that it would ruin the horse to 

 give him such a race as he was getting in the condition 

 I knew him to be in. I took him into a field behind 

 the judges' stand, called for a couple of pails of warm 

 water with which I bathed him thoroughly, washed off the 

 mud, gave him a good fomenting with hot Pond' s Extract, 

 threw a light blanket over him, and walked him about. In 

 a short time he stopped trembling on his legs, seemed easier 

 in his wind, and I made up my mind that the rest of them 

 must be a little tired, as they too had been going their best 

 through the mud. In the deciding heat Fanny Robinson beat 

 Wedgewood all the way to the distance stand, but there he 

 carried her to a break, and won in 2:27J. 



This being the first race in which Wedgewood started, 

 and taking into consideration his condition, and the other 

 circumstances that I have alluded to, I should not have been 

 at all surprised if it had ruined him, and so stated at the 



