Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 August 1875 — The Present Queen of the Turf. [ARTICLE]

The Present Queen of the Turf.

The trotting-horse is an American invention. The Arabian is celebrated for his gallop, kindness and endurance, the Norman for his compact, strong frame, the English for his racing qualities, and each, in his respective field, has endeavored, for ages, to keep up the purity of blood and increase the peculiar faculty of which he boasts. But in America, where all these are used and, to a great extent, prided in, the trotter is the most sought after for family use, or as roadster or on the turf. While the racer on the turf proper still holds&way, yet there are agreat number of respectable persons who look on racing as highly demoralizing, and •mnot be induced to visit the race-course. These same individuals will pride themselves on the 2:40 horses and grow eloquent over Bashaw, Dexter, Hamilton blood, and ministers and laymen and refined ladies will crowdlhe fair-ground by the thousand to witness the fine stepping of the trotter. Lady Suffolk, American Girl, Flora Temple, Dexter, Goldsmith Maid, have each, in their turn, been monarch of the trotting-course, and have traveled as a triumph in special cars over the continent, drawing immense, admiring audiences by the thousands. Incredible amounts have been won and lost on them; they have been sold for fabulous prices, and each in its turn has been cutting the time down from the old “ 2:40 on the shell road” to 2:30, 2:26, 2:25, 2:21, 2:18, 2:16* -j, until it began to seem that horseflesh had got to its ultimatum of speed. But each has found some one stepping a halfsecond faster, and winning a race by a head or half a head, until it really seems as if the old brag of one of our famous trainers will be verified: that the American horse will yet be found who will trot his mile in two minutes. For a long time Goldsmith Maid has been the idol, and hundreds of thousands have-crowded around to see her clear-cut limbs, bright eyes, fine coat and quiet movement, and made race-course and fairground echo with the shouts over her victory from Maine to California. But now, with the other famous ones, .she must step down and but, and Lulu is now the queen. “The King is dead, long live the King!” was the old cry of France, when the old King died and the new one succeeded. And so it is with Goldsmith Maid. She has passed away as the great American trotter, and the people now shout: Long live Lulu! The telegraph brings us the news that on Saturday, at Rochester, N. Y., Lulu beat Goldsmith Maid, winning three heats in the incredible short time of 2:15%, 2:16%, 2: 17 —the fastest three heats in one race on record. Lulu has burst on the horse world as a star of the first magnitude. What may be her future capacity remains to be seen. The history of trotting has shown that these great trots have always in successive races been beaten by the same horse, and that generally the speed can be increased from two to three seconds. If so, and Lulu retains the turf without accident, we may, before another season, see her down to 2:12 before she steps out as beaten by some other favorite at 2:11%. — Cincinnati