MESSENGER AND EARLY TROTTERS 103 



York, and in New Jersey. But in each neighbor- 

 hood he made an impression on the horses that 

 came after him, an influence which seems to have 

 been both good and enduring. 



Trotting and pacing racing in America had 

 been popular even before Messenger's coming, 

 and long before his get and their get appeared on 

 the road. But the matches were neighborhood 

 affairs and attracted only local attention. There 

 was absolutely no effort at organization and the 

 construction of trotting tracks until many years 

 later. What racing there was was in the hands 

 and under the control of gentlemen; how much 

 interest they took in these trotting and pacing 

 matches I do not know. But not much I fancy, 

 for caste in America was stronger and more 

 separating than it is now, when, if we put the 

 "mighty rich" in a class by themselves there is 

 very little at all. It was not until between 1820 

 and 1830 that horses were trotted on tracks, and 

 then there was little, if any, of this mile heat 

 business to see really how fast a horse could go for 

 a short distance. What the people of that elder 

 day seemed to be most interested in was how far 



