LIFE WITH THE TBOTTEBS. 409 



astride of Mm he would cavort about in such, a manner as 

 to be in constant danger of seriously injuring himself. 



So far as Goldsmith Maid is concerned a book could be 

 written about that wonderful mare, and for that very reason 

 it follows that what appears in these pages must necessarily 

 be of a sketchy character. Even now, a dozen years after 

 she was retired from the turf, the public is perfectly famil- 

 iar with Goldsmith Maid and her wonderful perf oionances 

 on the trotting turf, so that I shall not attempt in any man. 

 ner to consider that phase of her career. 



When I got Goldsmith Maid she was eight years old and 

 liad a record of about 2 : 32. Her early history was a romantic 

 one, viewed from the standpoint of subsequent events, and it 

 seems strange that a mare that for years was regarded as too 

 willful for harness purposes on the farm where she was bred, 

 and whose speed as a racer was put to the test by the 

 farmer' s boys on moonlight nights when there were quarter- 

 mile running races to be decided in a lane not far from 

 where they lived, should in a few years not only become 

 famous as a trotter, but do a mile so much faster than any 

 other horse that from that time on there was never any 

 question as to her supremacy; and that when she retired 

 from the turf was just as much the queen as she was five 

 years before that when she had first trotted in 2:14. In 

 those years she had fought her way step by step to the very 

 front of the trotting turf, and once arrived there had held 

 undisputed sway, not only in the matter of winning races 

 against other horses, but also in trotting against the watch, 

 a far harder sort of race, and had successively lowered the 

 trotting record of the world from 2:17J, the time made by 

 Dexter at Buffalo in 1866 when I drove him, to 2:14, which 

 figures were the best when Goldsmith Maid retired in 1877. 

 But 2:14 was not destined for a very great length of time to 

 be the limit of speed in the trotting horse, for the next 

 season after the Maid went out of the harness for good 

 Rarus trotted in 2:13J, and then in rapid succession came 

 St. Julien, Maud S., and Jay-Eye-See. 



