186 LIFE WITH THE TEOTTEES. 



ent horses has a sort of knack, and gets on to a horse's 

 peculiarities very quickly. That was one of Mace's strong 

 points. He would look a trotter over and tell at a glance 

 about what sort of a horse he was. There was another thing 

 about Mace that a good many people overlooked, and that 

 was that if he was out to trot or work with you he was study- 

 ing your horse at every opportunity, and if there was any 

 peculiarity about him he was pretty apt to see it, or in other 

 words he would try to get the best of everything that was 

 going. He said to me once, when I was a boy: "When- 

 ever you go into a fight with a man, the first thing you do 

 is to find out what kind of tools he is gotag to have, and be 

 sure and hit him first." That was invariably Mace' sway 

 in a race. He found out all he could about the other man's 

 horse and his ability and was prepared to take advantage 

 •of all the weak things. In regard to this peculiarity of 

 Hopeful' s that Mace told me of, and that I learned when I 

 •came to drive him to make use of, I was also prepared to 

 take advantage of it when Hopeful came to trot against 

 Rarus, as I never allowed Mace to go up and come down 

 with me on a bulge. No matter how far he went back, I 

 went back and turned with him. Mace was pretty cute, 

 and often tried his old tactics, but I had just as good a 

 horse, if not a little better than he, and I had him at a dis- 

 advantage. I often heard people say that Hopeful always 

 made a better race against any horse than he would against 

 Rarus, and I think that was the reason why. The man who 

 drove Rarus was well acquainted with Hopeful, both from 

 hearsay and by having driven him, something that might 

 not seem like much of an advantage, but it would be enough 

 to win a close race. 



Returning to the story of Wedgewood and his races, I 

 may say that after the contest at Springfield, where I dis- 

 tressed the horse somewhat in an effort to please a friend, 

 he went to Hartford, trotted five heats there, and made the 

 etar performance of his life against a fresh lot of timber, 

 which included Charley Champlain, Iron Age, Knox Boy, 



