THE KENTUCKY SADDLE-HORSE 149 



Central Kentucky to carry on their operations. 

 So, also, with the trotters. Indeed, it has been 

 maintained that in this lime stone region, where 

 blue grass is indigenous and where it was found in 

 abundance in the park-like woods by the early 

 explorers that the very bones of horses that had 

 grazed upon it from infancy were harder, stouter 

 and less sponge-like than those from anywhere 

 else. This much for the virtue of the lime stone 

 nurtured merits of the blue grass. 



But the people have had much to do with the 

 excellence of Kentucky horses. They seem to 

 have been by nature interested in the breed of 

 horses from the beginning of their settlement 

 there. One of the first records of the Colonial era 

 is that of a Kentuckian who was killed by an 

 Indian while training a race-horse on a frontier 

 race-course. And among the seven first statutes 

 enacted by the Colony when in preparation to 

 become a state of the Union, was one to regulate 

 the range and improve the breed of horses. They 

 were horse lovers in Kentucky in the beginning as 

 they are to-day. And to-day there is no crime that 

 is looked upon with more contempt than to mis- 



