Now and again, while grooming her, Dad would step back a few paces and look upon her with pride.
"There's great breeding in the old mare," he would say, "great breeding; look at the shoulder on her, and the loin she has; and where did ever you see a horse with the same nostril?
Believe me, she'll surprise a few of them!" We began to regard Bess with profound respect; hitherto we had been accustomed to pelt her with potatoes and blue-metal.
The only thing likely to prejudice her chance in the race, Dad reckoned, was a small sore on her back about the size of a foal's foot.
She had had that sore for upwards of ten years to our knowledge, but Dad hoped to have it cured before the race came off with a never-failing remedy he had discovered--burnt leather and fat.
Every day, along with Dad, we would stand on the fence near the house to watch Dave gallop Bess from the bottom of the lane to the barn--about a mile.

We could always see him start, but immediately after he would disappear down a big gully, and we would see nothing more of the gallop till he came to within a hundred yards of us.

And would n't Bess bend to it once she got up the hill, and fly past with Dave in the stirrups watching her shadow!--when there was one: she was a little too fine to throw a shadow always.

And when Dave and Bess had got back and Joe had led her round the yard a few times, Dad would rub the corn-cob over her again and apply more burnt-leather and fat to her back.
On the morning preceding the race Dad decided to send Bess over three miles to improve her wind.

Dave took her to the crossing at the creek--supposed to be three miles from Shingle Hut, but it might have been four or it might have been five, and there was a stony ridge on the way.
We mounted the fence and waited.