THE HORSE OF AMERICA. 



CHAPTEE I. 



INTRODUCTION. 

 General View of the Field Traversed. 



Ix undertaking to fulfill a promise made years ago, to write a 

 history of the American Trotting Horse and his ancestors, I am 

 met with the inquiry: What were his ancestors and whence did 

 they come? To say that the American Trotter, the phenomenal 

 horse of this century, is descended from a certain horse imported 

 from England in 1788, does not fully meet the requirements of 

 the truth, for there are other and very distinctive elements 

 embodied in his inheritance that are not indebted to that partic- 

 ular imported horse. In searching for these undefined elements, 

 I have found myself in the fields of antiquity, reaching out step 

 by step, further and further, until the utmost boundaries of all 

 history, sacred and profane, were clearly in view. There I found 

 a field that was especially attractive because it was a new field, 

 and the relations of the peoples of the earliest ages to their horses 

 had never been investigated nor discussed. Having no engage- 

 ments nor necessities to hurry me, the careful exploration of this 

 hitherto unknown territory has afforded me very great enjoy- 

 ment. 



As the result of these investigations, the breadth and scope of 

 this volume will be greatly widened, touching upon the originals 

 of most of the lighter types of horses, and many of the idols of 

 the imagination will be demolished. The objective point is the 

 history of the Trotting Horse, but before reaching that point we 

 must consider the beginnings of, practically, nearly all the vari- 

 eties of horses in the world. The assistance that I may be able 

 to gain from modern writers will be very limited, and restricted 



