St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-11-02
Great Importance of the Breeders Meetings
in Respect to Producing Better
Trotting Stock.
Patrons Fast Race in Kentucky Causes a
Great Deal of Comment and Sur
prises Everybody.
The Blood of Mambrino Chief Pro-
ducfng Some Very Fast Trot-
tiers in Kentucky.
Commodore Kittson's Great Sale of
Running Horses Tomorrow
A Noted Mare.
Breeders, Meetings.

The breeding of trotting horses has, dur
ing the past year, received market impe-
tus through the agency of the newly-organ-
lied state associations. A year ago Ken
lucky was the only state that had such an
organization. Illinois organized one in
1884. Since then similar organizations
have been completed in New York, Ohio,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska and Ten
nessee. In all these states meetings were
held which resulted very favOrably. In
speaking of these meetings the Chicago
HOrseman makes the following remarks:
THAT these breeders meetings advance the
best interests of the trOtter no one who has
given the subject thought will doubt.
That early training makes cripples of a
good many horses there is no denying, but
in the light of the experience of the past five
years Hiram Woodruff's remark that early
maturity i'll trotterS means early decay must
be put away on the shelf where repose
other maXims whose days of usefulness are
over. Over-training a trOtter at an early
age, or at any age, for that matter, means
the breakdown of the animal, and of course
this danger is vastly increased in the case
of colts whose bones are yet in a
formative state, and whose tendons, from
sheer lack of strength due to youth, are
particularly susceptible to the strains so
likely to be put upon them during course
of systematic training to prepare the young
animal for contest which may require that
he go five or six heats of a mile at his very
best rate of speed, with the additional
work of oft-repeated and rapid scoring
previous to each heat. 1t has been argued
by some who would seek to put this matter
Of early training in false light, that no
ic for tho
races trotted by two, three and four-year-
olds, but the facts show an entirely differ
ent state of affairs to be true. One of the
most desperately contested races ever seen
was that in which the now famous black
gelding Jay-EyeSee made in his debut.
1t was for four-year-olds, and before it
came to an end seven heats had been
trotted, all in one afternoon, the time of
the miles being 2:2S4, 2:2Ss4, 2:25%.
1868, 1924. 2:239, 2:30. Jay-Eye-See
won the fifth and sixth heats of this race in
1924, 2:231s, and the fact that the race
did not injure him is no argument that eff
forts of that character can by any possbil-
ity be beneficial to colts of his age. At ST.
Louis this year a lot of three-year- oldS
went six heats at an average rate of speed
better than 2:s5, and the winner of the race
has since trotted three winning heats in a
race in 2:20A, 2:25, 2:1915. One colt in a
dozen may be able to stand the work nee
essary to put him in condition for races of
}his character, but it is inevitable that the
other eleven will be more or less injured it
put through the mill.
But that the early training of trotters is,
on the whole, to be deprecated cannot
truthfully be said. What the trotting-
horse breeders are striving to attain is a
standard in horsefesh that will leave little
or no room for improvement. 1t is only a
colt whose bone is of the most ivory-like
fibre, whose tendOns are like whipcord, and
whose lungs are perfect in structure, that
can stand the terrible strain of long race
at high speed. 1t is these physically per-
feet horses that we are trying to breed, and
such type can be founded only by breed
ing from the most perfect animals Of each
generation. The early training will bring
out the defects as well as the eXcellencies,
and it is better to learn when the first colts
of a stallion are two years old that their sire
has given them weak joints, poor feet, or
faint hearts, than to wait five or six years
for information that cannot be acted upon
too quickly by the intelligent breeder.
Many valuable lessons have been taught by
the breeders trOtting meetings of 1885, and
the performances by the trotters of various
ages have been most creditable. Nut
breaker, two-year-old, has trotted in
2:2s19, while Patron at three years has
2:191S to his record, both these colts being
bred at Glenview, and both of their sres
are owned there. A singular coincidence is
that three northern-bred three-year-o Odds
one from Illinois, one from Minnesota and
one from Maine-have made records of
1864. The four-year- old record of 2:17M,
made last year by the California FLY,
Kinda Rose, has not been eQualed, and
there is nothing out that seems likely to do
the trick. That Patron, who equaled the
best previous three yearold record by trot-
ting the third heat Of his race at Lexington
in 2:1915 can beat those figures there is very
little question, he having trotted the last
quarter of his fastest mile in 324 seconds,
or at the rate of mile in 200.