THE HACKNEY. 213 



THE HACKNEY. 



Prior to the end of the eighteenth century the 

 use of wheeled vehicles was not general in 

 Britain, nor indeed, anywhere else. Eoads were 

 few and bad and people stirred abroad afoot or 

 ahorseback. In the eastern part of England 

 there was at that time a strain of riding horses 

 called the Norfolk Trotter and the Hackney is 

 his lineal descendant. It is peculiar how dif- 

 ferent nations develop live stock along such dif- 

 ferent lines with the same object in view. In 

 the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth 

 centuries the Norfolk Trotter was a fast horse, 

 able to gallop, trot, walk and stay. Yet he was 

 a thick-necked, heavy-headed, cobby little horse, 

 devoid of much beauty, if we are to believe that 

 the artists of the time have portrayed him cor- 

 rectly. There is no question about his speed 

 over long distances. There is no need to bur- 

 den these pages with the records of feats 

 achieved in the dim and misty past, but there 

 is no denying the fact that the trotting inher- 

 itance bequeathed to the Kent Mare by imp. 

 Bellf ounder materially assisted in the formation 

 of our own unchallenged trotting breed. The 

 action of these old-time English trotters was 

 high both fore and aft, and the general trappi- 

 ness of the type seems always to have been one 

 of its characteristics despite its heavy forehand 

 and substantial thickness. 



With the more universal introduction of 



