234 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



was enacted "that from and after the passage of this act, the 

 training, pacing, trotting, and running of horses upon regulated 

 courses and upon private property in the county of Queens, is 

 hereby declared to be exempted and free for five years from the 

 provisions and penalties of an Act entitled an Act to prevent 

 Horse-racing," etc. {Revised Statutes, N. Y., Ed. 1836, III, p. 282.) 

 The races were allowed only in the months of May and October, 

 and Section III provided that the sheriff of the county should be 

 on hand at these " trials of speed " (as the statute calls them) to 

 see that all was conducted in a way conducive to good morality. 

 When this amendment expired by limitation, it was re-enacted, 

 April 3, 1826, extending the privilege for ten years, and until 

 March 30, 1837 {ib., p. 283), and in 1834 another amendment 

 allowed "the trials of speed authorized by law in the County of 

 Queens " to take place between the first day of April and the fif- 

 teenth day of June, and between the first day of September and 

 the fifteenth day of November of each year. It is only just to 

 say that "trials of speed" were finally declared by statute to be 

 horse-racing and liable to the penalties thereof unless exempted by 

 special act. 



I have been thus particular in giving these dates, because it 

 marks an epoch in the history of trotting. It is the beginning 

 of organizations for the special improvement of trotting-horses, 

 although the provisions nominally extended to pacing and running 

 also. 



The New York Trotting Club was organized in 1825, with a 

 view of improving the speed of road-liorses, as the old racing-clubs 

 end jockey-clubs had been to improve ridingAiov^QB. Their course 

 was near Jamaica, L. I., about a mile from the old Union course, 

 and was probably the first trotting -cowcse in the world. The Hunt- 

 ing Pai'k Association was formed at Philadelphia in February, 

 1828, and the nest year measures were begun for a trotting club 

 at Baltimore, and then organizations spread rapidly. The Ameri- 

 can Turf Register began in 1829, and recorded the trots, and by 

 this time, or certainly by 1830, trotting may be said to have be- 

 come an established sport, rapidly increasing in popularity. There 

 was for a time a feeling with many that it was a sort of rustic 

 sport, fit for the masses, as running had been for the wealthier 

 classes. But that very thing, that it was adopted by the masses, 

 was a great gain in the end. 



