Cape Breton's Magazine

for another mm and that fellow said, "Follow him a little closer." We had a place for score • so many yards • 50 yards for score • so I let him get to the bushes from the starting line before I let the mare go. So he had 50 yards at the start • and I passed him. I don't believe it was 200 yards past the starting line that I passed him. His mare broke when I passed him and she galloped straight up this way to the shore • and I thought he was coming ashore here but he didn't. When he got to the land here he swung across the harbour to where the crowd was • never stopped • he went right for home. My mare hooked her quarter boot just a short while after I passed him and tripped herself and down she goes. There was a kind of a coat? ing on the ice • it wasn't real slippery. Some of them had skates on but it wasn't good skating, it was good for trotting on. It was a trotting sleigh I was on. And when she went down with the coating on the ice • if it had been slippery she'd have slipped along on her side • but she went down ajid stopped real quick when she struck the ice. It doubled the sleigh up and fired me on top of her and the sleigh doubled up over me. Hector MacDougal, he was the first man, he had skates on • he'd seen it from up at the finish and he skated down to help me. She'd lay down and never move till you'd tell her to. So we got the sleigh off her. I was driving her down here in Sugarloaf one afternoon. She hooked her boot like that and she tripped. It was right slip? pery • she slid as far as from here to the barn on her side and laid there and not a move out of her till we slipped the sleigh off of her, and she jumped up. Wouldn't move till you'd tell her. She was wonder? ful like that. Roddy MacKinnon and Philip Morrison • they were the two fastest. It was a tight race between Roddy and Morrison. You wouldn't know which one would come in. Roddy's horse was getting old so he bought Phil? ip's mare. Took her up to Ingonish and, oh, he was beating everything up there. He told Steve Whitty to come see me. Roddy had given my mare great praise, but he said, "She's not in my mare's class for speed." And I said, "Did he tell you how much he could beat her?" "Yes, he could beat her a hundred yards out of a half mile." And Whitty says to me, "What do you think of that?" And I said, "He never could beat her that much. But," I said, "he hasn't seen this mare go since she got to know how to travel." "And what would you say about this 100 yards?" I said, "If you get them on the ice I'm expecting that you're the man that would have the 100 yards." "Well," he said, "I'd give you $200 more if I thought that was right." So I said, "You get Roddy on the ice next winter. Drop me a line to let me know how you made out." So one day a message came • the telegraph office was at my place • was right here in this comer. "I got Roddy on Harold Wilkie with a hobbled horse; Mrs. Austin MacDonald (Marie), the first woman to race on the ice • and she won. Her horse is Don Worthy. CAPE ISLAND 20 Work easy • Play hard The CAPE ISLAND 20 in fiberglass is the economical choice for a rugged open boat. A balsa-cored hull and rigid stringer network keep her stiff under extreme loading. D.O.T. rated over 2400 lbs. Timeless Nova Scotia design is seasafe. Available: inboard, outboard, I/O with std. or break-deck sheer. $3500 complete. CABOICRAFT INDUSTRIES LIMITED R. Edward. Sydney. Nova Scotia. B1P 6K7 722 2nd Street. Annapolis. Maryland. 21403 Plant (902) 539-7740. Sales Office (301) 268-6195 AND AT SELECTED DEALERS.