LIFE WITH THE TROTTERS. 223 



'day what horse to breed a mare to, and giving Mm her pedi- 

 gree, he advised me to send her to Kentucky Prince. I was 

 ralher surprised, as at that time I had not heard much of 

 Kentucky Prince. He belonged at this time to a gentleman 

 who bred more for his own amusement than for public 

 patronage. JiTothing much was ever done in the way of 

 advertising Kentucky Prince, and for that reason he was 

 partially overlooked. I knew that Colonel West must have 

 some very good reasons for advising me to breed to the 

 horse, and asked him to state them. His first reason was 

 that his breeding was good; then he said that as an individ- 

 ual horse Kentucky Prince was simply perfect. He ther 

 went on to explain to me in his genial manner how he had 

 leceived a letter from a man down in Bourbon County 

 of Kentucky, telling him that the writer had a wonderful 

 stallion that he would like to sell. The letter made such an 

 impression on Colonel West that one day he took his team, 

 and his trainer and friend, Geo. Brasfield (a man who, though 

 now retired from the turf, has handled many famous trot- 

 ters in their babyhood, among them Director, Jay- Eye- See, 

 and Santa Glaus), and started for the farm of the man who 

 had written. He said that when they arrived at the farm 

 they found the best crop of weeds, and the poorest cattle, 

 he had met in a long time — in fact the whole county had an 

 aspect of going to seed. On inquiry for his man Colonel 

 West was told that he had gone down to the bottom-lands 

 to drive up the cows. He asked about the horse, and an old 

 darky said they Jiad such a horse, but the farmer had rid- 

 •den him after the cows. He said while waiting for the farm- 

 er' s return he interviewed the colored person on the subject . 

 -of trotters in general, and this horse in particular, and his 

 ideas about a trotting horse were something wonderful. He 

 finally volunteered to show the Colonel the track on which 

 this trotting horse was trained the days that the farmer did 

 not have to ride him after the cows, and as the Colonel had 

 nothing else to do lie bethought himself to pace off the track, 

 and see whether it was half a mile or not, which he did, and 



