THE AMERICAN TROTTER, 35 
as Mr. Herbert truly remarks, would ruin the legs and feet of any horse 
ridden or driven at such a pace as to do a mile in two minutes and thirty 
seconds. I fully believe that the horses of America have sounder legs and 
feet than those of our own country, partly from being kept cooler in their 
stables, partly from their being less stimulated by inordinate quantities of 
oats and beans, but chiefly from their ancestors having been less injured 
by hard roads than those of our own. If this is the case we must have 
in every succeeding generation more and more difficulty in getting sound 
roadsters, and such, I believe, is really the fact. 
By many people it is supposed that the American trotter is a dis- 
tinct breed or strain of horses, and that we can in this country easily 
obtain plenty of horses able to do their mile “within the thirties,” by 
importing individuals and breeding from them. This hypothesis, however, 
appears to be unfounded according to the evidence of Mr. Herbert, as 
recorded in his ‘‘ magnum opus,” and that of other writers in the New 
York sporting press. The former gentleman, who is “well up.” on this 
subject, says :—“ And first we shall find that the time trotter in America 
is neither an original animal of a peculiar and distinct breed, nor even an 
animal of very long existence since his first creation. Secondly, we shall 
find that in an almost incredibly short space of time, owing to the great 
demand for and universal popularity of the animal, united to a perfectly 
devised, and now ubiquitously understood, system of breaking, training, 
and driving him so as to develop all his qualities to the utmost, the 
trotting horse of high speed, good endurance, showy style of going, and 
fine figure, has become from a rarity a creature of every-day occurrence, 
to be met with by dozens in the eastern and middle states, and scarcely 
any lor.ger regarded as a trotter, unless he can do his mile in somewhere 
about two minutes and a half. Thirdly, it will appear that the trotting 
horse is, in no possible sense, a distinct race, breed, or family of the horse ; 
and that his qualities as a trotter cannot be ascribed or traced to his origin 
from, or connexion with, any one blood more than another. It is true, 
and it is to be regretted, that of trotting horses the pedigrees have been so 
little alluded to, and probably from the nature of circumstances are so 
seldom attainable, that few, indeed, can be directly traced to any distance 
in blood. Enough zs known, however, to show that some horses of first- 
rate powers have come from the Canadian or Norman-French stock ; some 
from the ordinary undistinguished country horse of the southernmost of the 
midland states; some from the Vermont family; some from the Indian 
pony; and lastly, some mainly, if not entirely, from the thoroughbred. 
To no one of these families can any superiority be attributed as pro- 
ducing trotters of great speed. All have shown their specimens by 
means of which to claim their share in the production. Only it may be 
affirmed, generally, that while some very famous trotting horses have 
been nearly, if not entirely, thoroughbred, the low, lazy, lounging, 
daisy-cutting gait and action of the full-blooded horse of Oriental blood 
is not generally compatible with great trotting action or speed. Still 
it is true that the best time-trotters have not the round, high-stepped 
action which is prized in carriage-horses, or parade-horses for show, and 
which probably originated and existed to the greatest extent in the 
Flemish or the Hanoverian horse of the coldest of all imaginable strains 
of blood; and that they have in a great measure the long reaching 
stride, the quick gather, and the comparatively low step of the thorough- 
bred.” 
In oRDER TO ESTIMATE the truth of this statement it is only necessary 
D 
