STUD BOOK. 140 



of our fastest road and sporting horses have been pacers, 

 and they are frequently matched with trotters in races. 

 Many horses both trot and pace, and of those that have both 

 gaits, some go faster in one and some in the other. To teach 

 a trotter to pace is somewhat difficult unless the horse natur- 

 ally inclines to it, but it may be done sometimes by riding 

 with a severe curb-bit and spurs. Of course it requires good 

 horsemanship, as well as means and appliances, to urge the 

 movement desired, and to restrain the animal from the 

 steps he is most accustomed to take. When the saddle was 

 more in use than now, pacing was a favorite gait with many 

 riders, but unless the horse can occasionally change his way 

 of going into a canter, it becomes very tiresome on a long 

 journey. Though the rider may not be jolted from the 

 saddle so much as by a trotter, the wabbling twists his back 

 first one way and then the other most fatiguingly. 



To teach a pacer to trot, various expedients are resorted 

 to. Fence-rails are put down about as far apart as a trotter 

 steps in a jog. The pacer is ridden over them and finds it 

 difficult to lift his feet over them in that gait, and adopts the 

 trot. When a horse has become very tired by long pacing 

 he wiK sometimes ease his weary muscles by a change of 

 action into a trot; and this he is more likely to do if the 

 roads are muddy. From such a beginning a skillful driver 

 may make the trotting permanent. 



Some very good and fast trotters were first pacers and 

 were taught the better way of going, and some of them after 

 they had acquired speed in their natural gait. 



Pelharn was first a very fast pacer, and afterward became 

 a distinguished trotter. In 1849 he was the first to win a 

 heat in harness in 2m. 28s. Cayuga Chief was a pacer in a 

 livery stable, in Worcester, Mass., and a favorite ladies' hack- 

 ney. One day he struck a trot, and soon became distin- 

 guished. In 1844 he trotted to a wagon with 2201bs. in 

 2m. 36 l-2s. The black gelding Pilot, probably a son of 

 the old pacer of the same name, was first a fast pacer. He 

 surprised his owner by striking a trot, and improved so 

 rapidly that in a short time he trotted in 2m. 28 l-2s. Tip, 

 and Dart, and Sontag were all pacers that afterward trotted 

 fast. Old Pacer Pilot went fast in both gaits, and so did his 

 grandson, Tom Wonder, the sire of the famous twenty-mile 

 trotter, John Stewart 



Though there are objections to pacing as a road gait, in 

 harness, some of the fastest have been pacers ; and though 

 it is generally believed that a pacer soon tires, there are per- 



