208 LIFE Vv'ITH THE TROTTERS. 



gave Turner $25 profit on tlie colt and took him with some 

 horses to California. He added that he did not pretend to 

 know much about trotters, but had been some with race- 

 horses when a boy, and all the training this horse had 

 received was done by himself. He wanted to know if I 

 would oblige him by going to the track some day driving 

 his horse, and telling him what I thought of the animal. 

 To please Mr. McDonald I said I would, and on the follow- 

 ing day we met at the track by agreement, and he had his 

 horse there. When I saw the animal I was not particularly 

 impressed with him as he was a low-headed horse, with 

 rather a slouchy way of moving. McDonald asked me to 

 drive him from the half-mile pole to the judges' stand. I did 

 so, and when I set him going he moved out at a nice clean open 

 gait, and went the half in 1:11. Mr. McDonald seemed 

 rather excited at this, and when I told him that I thought ■ 

 I could have driven the haK from one to two seconds better, 

 I think it pleased him more than would, just then, a con- 

 tract to build a brick block. On the strength of this per- 

 formance, I arranged to take the horse back with me to 

 San Francisco and train him. He showed me a trial of 

 2:22J, and Mr. McDonald and myself brought him East, and 

 trotted him a number of races with more than ordinary suc- 

 cess. He had a record of about 2:30 at this time, and was 

 called Brigadier. 



We trotted "Brig" through the Michigan circuit, where 

 he won all his races. People say there is nothing in luck. 

 I hardly think there is myself, but this was one of the luck- 

 iest horses I ever had. If ever it came to a close decision 

 out of the judges' stand. Brigadier always seemed to get the 

 best of it. I can give a little incident which illustrates this, 

 and also shows the uncertainty of horse-racing. We had 

 Brigadier in a race at Toledo, Ohio, over a half-mile track. 

 When we got there we found a large field of horses and a 

 very rough track. Mr. McDonald liked to back his horse 

 well whenever he had a chance to win, and as we thought 

 we could handle the field easily, he put on about all the 



