

CHAPTER I. 



WANTED-A SQUARE QAIT. 



One of the most puzzling and intricate problems for the trainer 

 of the trotter or pacer to solve is proper balance. By "balance" is 

 meant such exact adjustment of hitching and checking, weight of 

 shoes, as well as length of toe and its angle with heel, that will bring 

 about, with the least expenditure of energy on the part of the horse, 

 the most regular and frictionless, the truest and freest action, and 

 therefore the greatest speed which such a horse is capable of pro- 

 ducing. 



The great difficulty of controlling a horse's locomotion lies not 

 only in the complexity of a living organism, but also more particu- 

 larly in the shape and the articulation of the leg and the hoof. Where, 

 however, the relations of the mental and physical qualities of the horse 

 are not such as to suggest or establish the so-called trotting instinct, 

 or the ability to stick to the trotting (or pacing) action, even man's 

 best devices and efforts often fail. It may lie within the possibilities 

 of the laws of heredity that by continual training of successive genera- 

 tions of the harness horse this instinct will become more of a fixed or 

 typical characteristic. The ideal outcome of such hereditary influ- 

 ence would, therefore, seem to be a more ready response to the train- 

 ing for speed, and may bring about the disuse of all the cumbersome 

 paraphernalia for the protection of the legs and of the cruel and un- 

 natural check-line, so that a free action and a free head may become 

 the general results of all combined efforts of the breeding and training 

 of our harness horse. 



Any sound and well bred trotter or pacer that has not been abused 

 will stick to a square gait and will, true to his instinct, try to do his 

 level best until constrainedly some difficulty of movement. In most 

 cases these are mechanical hindrances, such as ill-shaped feet, too 



