PREFACE



    For a decade more than the three score years and ten
allotted by a gracious Providence to man I have been awaiting
the solemn call which comes to all human kind to weigh in,
and then to the great Steward make account of the use to
which I put the opportunities that came to me.
    In the active competition of life, when rivalries were
keen, when ambitions created new fields and contests kept
alert both mind and body, there was little time, indeed, to do
more than merely store away in unclassified groups in
memory events and incidents each one deserving of a sep-
arate chapter. To write a history of the American turf had
long been a cherished project, but each day of a life of
practically unremitting and exacting labor interfered until
the westering sun of my eightieth year warns me that I must
be up and doing if I would achieve my cherished ambition
and leave behind me something which I trust will be worthy
tribute to the best and the noblest sport that it is given to
man to enjoy.
    If in the chapters which are to come there should be
noted a tone of enthusiastic optimism, let the reader realize
that sixty-five years of my life were spent in the activities of
the turf as a jockey, a trainer and an owner; that I have
seen, and in many of them personally participated, practically
all of the great contests which gave fame to our thorough-
breds; that I have traveled on foot through valleys and over
mountains, when but rough paths pointed the way between
places now drawn close together by the bands of great trunk
line railroads, leading the horse that was on conquest bent;
that I spent weary weeks on journeys that now would be but
the occupation of one brief day of luxurious travel; that I
have seen the upward and the onward progress which has
marked the rise of the thoroughbred in America from a
little meet in some isolated though sport-loving place to the
magnificent seasons of Belmont Park.
    No optimism of my earliest and most enthusiastic days
could have possibly created for me a grander vista than that