Horses for Vermont. 143 



annouiiceuient that they had discovered that it would not 

 be fair to make it. 



So, still lat.er, the persistent efforts to belittle this kin<l of 

 performance are, no doubt, due to the fact that no represent- 

 ative of the New York families has been able to wrest these 

 laurels from a Vermont Morgan, or even approacli liis time, 

 hitched with a running mate. 



Now I claim that in a race, to go as jon please, any 

 horse entering has a right to harness as light as is possible, 

 and have every advantage of that, as of his superior trot- 

 ting motion and instinct, that is not disturbed by any 

 attending circumstances into a break, and if he can go best 

 in one kind of a hitcli, and, in that hitch, make the best 

 time ever made by any horse, he is entitled to the credit of 

 the best recorded time ; and so long as the hitch that Dex- 

 ter went in on the occasion that Ethan made his 2:15 (for 

 years the fastest time made,) is of no more practical use, in 

 every day service, than the one Ethan went iu, there is just 

 as nnich sense and justice in calling it the fastest time as it 

 would be made in the other hitch, and I have no doubt it 

 would have been made moi-e prominent and of tener referred 

 to as the fastest time, had Dexter, hitched in precisely the 

 same wav, been able to have beaten Ethan. I am con- 

 vinced that that time has never been equalled by as even, 

 clean, honest trotting stroke, throughout a full mile, as was 

 made by Ethan Allen, on that occasion. 



But we have spent quite time enough on this speed ques- 

 tion, and perhaps more than its real merit, as affecting 

 Vermont farmers and breeders, deserves. If tlie Morgans 

 do not possess more valuable qualities for Vermonters, we 



