Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1890-11-14
SENATOR STANFORD ON HORSE
BREEDING

hotel one day last week talking to re-
presentve of the New York Times on
the subject of horses. He was enthusiast
tic, as he always is when talking horse,
and he was telling of his successes both
with trotters and runners. The wonder
full flly Sunol had been disappoint-
ment to him as 3-year-old, but he had
hopes that she would come around all
right again, now that she had been taken
back to California. The senator is a
thorough believer in the "glorious
climate of California; as a producer of
horses as well as men and vegetables.
He was also interested in the welfare
of that fast Splinter Racine, the first
horse to break the long standing mile
record of the famous Ten Brock, and in
the career of the beautiful and high-class
Gorge. Both of these horses are the
property of Senator Stanford. although
they have been trained in the stables and
run in the colors of other men.
"Did you ever hear how became in
terested in horses?" suddenly asked the
senator. mo? Well, Iii tell you. 1t
was several years ago, and had been
working very hard-so hard, in fact, that
my physician said that unless | took a
rest would break down altogether. Ny
business interests were so great and so
pressing at that time that could not
think of following this advice. | told
/ M ,1,x-c tnin 81,
was impossible, and that he must pre-
scribe something else. He thought a
while, and then said that the next best
thing was to occupy my mind in some
other way, and to obtain the relief and
rest is to be found in diversion. He sug-
gested driving. had at this time one
pretty good horse, a roadster, and fol-
lowed his advice. quickly became so
interested in the animal possessed that
| bought another and better horse. |
drove these and watched them carefully.
l soon found myself trying to develop
them into something better than they
were, and | succeeded so well that [
bought others and developed them. AL
most before | realized it had got togeth-
er fair stable and was deeply interested
in the development of the horse. 1t was
but qnick and natural step to breeding,
and | made it with enthusiasm
sin the old days. when we washed
gold in the mines. there was a certain
sort of dust that could not be separated
from the sand except with the use of a
magnet. We used to put the magnet in
the dirt and the gold would stick to it.
In my leisure moments from mining |
was wont to amuse myself by expert
ments with my magnet. 1t was the COM
mon horseshoe kind, and | would dip in
to heap of iron tacks and keep adding
to its burden until the limit of its
strength was reached. Then | would
strip away the tacks and load the magnet
again. | repeated this again and again
until | found that the power of the mag
net was seriously impaired. | succeeded
in reducing that power to one-third of
what it was originally, and | think that
could have destroyed it altogether by
simply overtaXing it, although | never
experimental that far. When became
interested in the development of the
horse, | recalled those idle moments with
the magnet. and | reasoned that the
power of horse could be destroyed lust as
readily by overtaxing as that of the mag
net. At that time it was the custom in
training horses to tax their endurance to
the utmost. They were given miles of
jogging and were worked until thev
were exhausted. This seemed to me to
be all wrong. 1t was just what | had
done with my old magnet, and | was con-
WINGED that it left the horse with impaired
strength and endurance each time it was
done. The more | thought about the
matter the more became convinced that
the proper way to develop the horse was
to keep every effort demanded of him
well within his powers. lie should not
be worked until he was exhausted, but
he should be trained to make one supreme
effort when his powers were at their best.
IL applied this theory, and have not .
only had remarkable success myself, but
have lived to see the whole system of .
training trotting horses revoluionized. .
There was Il time when trUtter was sup
posed to be immature until he was nine
or ten years old. Now we have three
and four year olds trotting close down to
record time, and even yearlings are train
ed. Personally, | am not little proud
of holding the two, three and four-year-
old records, and attribute that success
entirely to the system of training sug-
gested to me by the mining magnet and
inaugurated by me as relief from bust
ness cares.
"From developing the horse by train
ing it was but another step to develop
ing him by feeding, and my interest in
the horse and my love for him became so
great that | was impelled to add breeding