THE PACER. 433 



eulogist as "the most sumptuous," as well as the fastest of her day. She 

 was a rich chestnut, sixteen hands in height, good crest, high and thin 

 withers : her pedigree was excellent, and her greatest triumph was her 

 defeat of Hero, whom she distanced in the first heat to wagons in the 

 then unparalleled time of two minutes seventeen seconds. 



The original breed is said to have been introduced by Governor 

 Robinson of Rhode Island from Spain in the last century, and large 

 numbers of them were produced in New England for exportation to the 

 West Indies, where they were in great demand for the wives and 

 daughters of the planters. But change in our modes of traveling has 

 extinguished the pacer. While our roads were all bad, and horseback- 

 riding the only method of locomotion, pacers were highly-prized lux- 

 uries. Now they are superseded by the trotter, and for riding-horses ot 

 mere pleasure, the present day requires speed, style, and action, rather 

 than an easy gait which can be kept up at a slow pace for a considerable 

 time. Any animals possessing this gait at the present time have fallen 

 into it by accident, or been taught to pace. As far as is known, there is 

 no breed of horses in Spain or elsewhere, to which the gait is native, 

 and there has always been considerable doubt as to whether the claim 

 put forward for the Narragansett Pacer could be allowed. 



55 



