The Coming Horse. 155 



Tlie pi-evriiliug sentiment wms haste. Railroad trains 

 were not fast enough, thongli running faster, as a rule, than 

 at tlie present time. With unlimited steam power, no liors» 

 to tire or reek with sweat, why should they not go fast, yea, 

 faster f Their haste commenced at the door step, even, 

 and the poor horse was hurried to the depot so fast that 

 drawing the old fashioned carriage was so evidently to his 

 distress that lighter vehicles were demanded, until they 

 became little else than extenuated cobwebs. Faster horses, 

 too ; speed ! speed ! was the cry, until all else seemed 

 swallowed up in the one quality. We were told that only 

 little horses were fast, or could live with tlieir speed. Once 

 we believed this and bred them. It is true that many 

 fast horses are small. Why should they not be ? 

 They were bred in that direction. It is also true that a 

 large majority of the very fastest on the turf, for the past 

 ten years, have been above medium size, and many even 

 large, fifteen hand horses and over, tine, large carriage 

 horses, as American Girl, Lucy, George M. Patchen, Old 

 Put, Palmer, Fullerton, Gloster, Gazelle, Rolla, Golddust, 

 Gill)ert Knox, Rhode Island, Ericson, Blackwood, Smug- 

 gler, Pocahontas, Grafton, and a liost of others of the stars, 

 as you may say, of the trotting and pacing world. 



The experience of railroads has been that " fast to run is 

 fast to wear," and that great speed requires great substance; 

 and of horsemen that, although the little horse, with light 

 bone, tine style, and highly wrought nervous temperament 

 might trot fast in a fifty pound sulky, on a good track, with 

 nothing to excite him, for a mile, yet for long, fast drives, 

 and in nmch exciting company, that business men take on 



