Evening star., 1915-04-19
TRAVELETTE
BY NIKSAH.
Blue Grass Virginia.

Generally speaking, any one VINO
wants to know about the so-called "old
south must get his information from
books of history and popular novels,
but there are some places in Virginia
where the order of things has not
charged enough to make any differ
ence for at least fifty or sixty years.
An example is the blue grass belt, in
Fauuuier county, where the Blue Ridge
mountains break into low, rolling hills
covered with beautiful natural lawns
Of blue grass and dotted with fine
groves. In this region the horse is alb
solutely supreme. Since colonial days
some of the best mounts in America
have been bred. and raised in these roll
ing pastures. and they are still devoted
exclusively to to that purpose. There are
a few towns in the country such as War
renton, Marshall and Calverton. all bear
ing naces Of ancient southern families,
but they are very small places and
blossom into prominence only once
year, when they hold horse shows.
Every little village has its horse show
every summer, and the horse-ioVins
population, which Is practically the
whole population, follows them from
town to town.
The people of the blue grass region
may be divided. without any pretense
at drawing social lines. into two very
distinct classes. One of these is the
farmers who raise colts. and the other
Is the gentlemen horsemen who train
them. The sons of the first families OF
Fauquier county almost invariably fol-
low one professionalism of horSemen
All of the farmers of Fauquier coun-
ty breed horses, and when one of them
produces a colt that shows tendency
to try to jump out of his paddock he
knows that luck has come his way, TOT,
while a thoroughbred riding horse is
worth good money, thoroughbred
jumper is worth fortune, prov1deo
he is properly trained and you kno"
where to sell him.
The training and the selling are the
functions of the professional horseman.
He buys up a promising colt for per
haps $500 when it is a year old II the
colt proves to be nothing more than a
good riding horse he is hardly paying
a jumper he is literally worth his
weight in silver at least. When about
three years old the colts are tried OUT
in the little local horse shows II
they make a good showing they go TO
Washington or even New York, where
a Virginia gentleman with charming
manners and an eye to business can
easily bring them to the attention OF
people who can spend any amount OF
money to get something they really
want.
A typical Virginia horse trade was
that made by young Fauquier county
trainer a short time ago. He boughs
three promising colts for thousand
dollars when they were little over
a year old. For the next three years
all of his time. energy and thought
were centered upon the education OF
those colts. Every one of them was
born jumper. and as this young Vlr-
ginian watched their growing achieSe-
ments at the hurdle bar he knew that
fortune was within his grasp. AS the
colts neared maturity he began gong
to Chicago, where he became an az,
tractiye figure in social circles. When
the colts were four years old he sold
two of them for $4,000 to a young young
afford to buy her a five-thousand-dol-
lar Jumper every week if she wanted
it. And then, just by way of clinehins
rod the heiress, and now he is putting
in some rather extensive improvements
on the old place in Fauquier county.