LIFE AVITII THE TROTTERS. 357 



tuckians never for one moment losing their faith, in Wood- 

 ford Chief's ability to win, staid by him to a man. Ira 

 Holmes, whatever he might have lacked in size, made it np 

 in game, and he called the Kentuckians and went them one 

 better every hand they showed. In scoring for the word 

 Woodford Chief had the pole and Calmar the extreme out- 

 side, having finished last the night before. When they got 

 the word, they were as near even as possible for two horses 

 to be and both on a trot and there commenced one of the 

 most determined struggles that one could imagine. 



I trailed around the turn, Woodford Chief in the lead, 

 and in this position we struck the back stretch, where I 

 pulled Calmar out to give him a brush. Still Woodford 

 kept the lead, and so we rounded the upper turn I again 

 trailing. I made up my mind by this time that Calmar 

 could not out-trot him to take the pole from him, so con- 

 cluded to lay on his wheel and force the pace all I could and 

 take the chance of beating him at the finish, knowing that 

 Calmar was a grand finisher. Woodford Chief seemed to 

 have the speed of him and two or three times Calmar was on 

 the point of breaking. They turned into the stretch in that 

 position, and for the first two or three lengths the Chief 

 out-trotted Calmar; from there Calmar gradually gained, 

 and when they came to the stand I could not tell which was 

 in the lead. The Judges decided that Calmar had won the 

 heat and race, and of course our party was correspondingly 

 happy. Woodford Chief died the following winter. Had 

 he lived and met with no accident I am sure he would have 

 been one of the star performers of his day, and I consider 

 the loss of such a horse greatly to be regretted by all breed- 

 ers. Macey, who drove him, has developed from a boy into 

 a man, and while his interests are all with horses, and he 

 has often had good ones since, he told me that he had never 

 had one that quite took Woodford' s place. 



I never think over my career in connection with horse 

 racing but this race comes to my mind. The courage and 

 determination shown by both these animals impressed me 



