204 LIFE AVITH THE TKOTTEES. 



to be something familiar about Mm, as there often will about 

 an old friend that you have not seen for a long time. As I 

 looked him over carefully it came to my mind, "There is- 

 my old friend Ford." A feeling came over me about the 

 same as if I had seen some old friend that had been reduced 

 from luxury to poverty. I asked some people who were 

 with me if they thought the horse going by would ever be 

 taken for a race-horse. They said no, they did not think 

 there was any possible chance of that, and when I told them, 

 he was the only horse in the world that had ever beaten 

 Maud S. a heat, they were greatly surprised. In disposition, 

 Ford was a very mild and pleasant horse; he was a good 

 feeder and not a hard horse to train. He wore quarter boots 

 and knee boots, shoes and scalpers behind. I drove him 

 ■with an open bridle, and overhead check, long martingales, 

 and a Dexter snaffle bit. He was a horse that when it came 

 to the finish needed considerable driving, or hustling along, 

 as the boys call it, but in other respects there was nothing 

 remarkable about him. 



A horse of as marked peculiarities' as I ever saw was- 

 Adelaide, once a member of my stable, and she was a very 

 handsome small bay mare, less than fifteen hands high, and 

 when in condition did not weigh over 800 pounds. But 

 every ounce of her was first-class race-horse material, as. 

 she proved over and over again in her battles with some of 

 the biggest and best trotters that ever took the word on a. 

 race track — and when I say this, I mean that Adelaide was 

 a great one in her day. Trotters should always be gauged as 

 to their merits by the position they attained at the time 

 they were in their best form, and when Adelaide had the 

 most speed of her life it was at a day when a 2:15 horse was- 

 practically unknown, and not as now when every year a 

 new one of that speed comes out. Adelaide was a daughter 

 of Phil Sheridan, out of a mare that was brought to Water- 

 town by an English officer, and owned by a farmer, and 

 commenced her career by drawing wood to town by the side, 

 of her dam. She finally fell into the hands of a locaL 



