364 LIFE WITH THK TROTTERS. 



he was only considered worth about $600, which, was the 

 price he brought. As the horse came into my hands after- 

 ward and Mr. Harrington criticised my treatment of him 

 it may not be out of place for me to give my opinion of the 

 horse here. The first race in which Herrington started 

 Folger in was early in the spring in a climate which at its 

 best, is cold and disagreeable, and over a track that has been 

 notoriously bad ever since the day it was built. And while 

 I did not see Mr. Herrington work this horse nor drive him 

 in his race, from evidence which I consider thoroughly reli- 

 able I am satisfied he made the same mistake that I did 

 with Wilson, that is, started his horse in a race when he 

 was short of work, and while he won ; it in three straight 

 heats, he went three-quarters of a mile I am told in one heat 

 at a clip that would have strained any horse in the 

 world unless he was thoroughly seasoned for an efiiort 

 of that kind. The strongest proof I have that Folger was 

 out of condition when he started in this race is his 

 race of the following week, which he also won, but was so 

 badly out of condition that he lost one heat in 2:29| after 

 having made a record of 2:20^ the previous week. In his 

 second race Folger was unsteady, short of speed, and that 

 he won it was no credit to a fast horse. The following week 

 he won a race at Hartford after another struggle of five 

 heats where the best mile was about 2: 23f. In his Pough- 

 keepsie race he showed a record of three-quarters of a niile 

 in about 1 :40, and to have a horse with that wonderful speed 

 get off so that he could not go better than 2:23 or 2:24 

 there must have been some cause for it. 



Wilson, I think, wore the lightest shoes of any Wilkes 

 horse I ever saw, they weighing not over eight ounces in 

 front and about five behind. I have since often thought 

 that he would have gone well in tips. I believe that if our 

 trotting tracks were not quite so hard there are a great many 

 horses that would go better if shod in that manner. I do 

 not thii;ik it possible for horses to be shod in tips and trot- 

 ted successfully while our trotting tracks are so hard. I 



