CHAPTER XV
THE GOLD VASE
It was not without protest on the part of the Professor that Rensslaer drove Gay to Waterloo Park for the race for the Gold Vase, and when, punctually to the minute, the latter appeared in Connaught Square with the road wagon and pair with which he was subsequently to win first prize in the "Road Rig Appointment Class" at Olympia, an animated colloquy was going forward, in which Lossie Holden bore an animated part.
"You and Frank can come down by train if you like," said Gay defiantly, as through the window she saw the pair of almost thoroughbred-looking seal brown mares, no white, with long tails and manes. Then, with no more ado, she walked out, and took her place by Rensslaer's side.
Mamie H. and Nancy Clancy, each with a record "low down in the teens," were in the habit, whenever their heads were loosed, of going along at a 2.30 gait, and on the way down to the races they went together like one horse, without pulling or shying, or being afraid of motors, passing everything on the road drawn by horses, and making it lively even for the motors.
They were harnessed a little differently to what they are in the show ring, as instead of collars, (which are obligatory in a pair horse "road rig" class) they had breast or "Dutch" collars, such as are used in Vienna for pair horse racing, with the object of giving horses more freedom, also the reins were of the Viennese style, which, instead of coming together at the coupling, have single hand-pieces, continued double all the way, there being four reins in the hand instead of two.
Rensslaer explained that the breast collars have terrets only on the outside, so that the inside reins come back to the pad terrets, and give a more direct pull on the reins than if the horses wore collars, and Gay listened with all the eagerness of the novice, who has the luck to get from an expert "inside" knowledge of which the public—and even Carlton Mackrell—knew little.
Many murmurs of "There goes Rensslaer!" followed them on the road. Some of the men wondered who was the uncommonly pretty girl with him, others, again, recognised her as the somewhat remarkable Gay Lawless. She wished that the drive might last indefinitely, but all too soon it was over, the horses averaging sixteen miles an hour all the way down from Town to the course.
The scene when they arrived was pretty enough, and the attendance unusually good, as it was known that Rensslaer was driving—an extraordinary circumstance that had raised the hopes of the Trotting fraternity sky-high.
The race for the Gold Vase is a handicap in mile and a half heats, the entries, sixty, being divided into six heats with ten horses in each heat, with two semi-final heats for the twelve horses who have been first and second in these preliminary heats, and a final heat for the first and second horses in these semi-finals.