GENERAL YIEW OF THE FIELD. 9 



honest pedigree was the exception. In spreading abroad these 

 dishonest fictions as true pedigrees, the press perhaps not 

 venally, but ignorantly was made the active agent. Whenever 

 a rogue could get a pedigree into print, however absurd, nothing 

 could prevent its spread as the truth. The early sporting and 

 breeding press was not in the hands of men remarkable for con- 

 science and still less remarkable for knowledge. But the worst 

 of all was the "professional pedigree maker" who knew so many 

 things that he never knew, and stopped at nothing. In all this 

 dirty work of manufacturing pedigrees there is a very striking 

 resemblance between the awkward efforts of the early English 

 and the early American pedigree maker. This whole topic of the 

 ignorance of the press and the dishonesty of the pedigree makers 

 will be considered fully in its proper place. Fortunately, al- 

 though still far from perfect, the methods and care in the pres- 

 ervation of the true lineage of the race horse in our own day 

 have been greatly improved. The many efforts to improve the 

 American race horse by introducing fresh infusions of Saracenic 

 blood will receive due attention, especially as they have nearly all 

 been made within the newspaper period, and their uniform and 

 complete failure will not be new to American horsemen. 



When we reach the horses of the colonial period, we are in a 

 field that never has been explored and cannot be expected to yield 

 a very rich harvest. Here and there I have been able to pick up 

 a detached paragraph from some contemporaneous writer, and 

 occasionally a record, or an advertisement, from which, in most 

 cases, I have been able to construct a fair and truthful outline 

 and description of the horses of the different colonies, down to 

 the Eevolutionary war. The collection of the material has re- 

 quired great patience and great labor, but it has not been an irk- 

 some task, for many things have been brought to light of great 

 interest to the student of horse history. The knowledge of the 

 colonial horse in his character and action, that may be gathered 

 from the chapters devoted to his description and history, I flatter 

 myself, will not only be interesting as something new, but will 

 throw a strong light on the lineage of the two-minute trotter and 

 pacer. 



The colonists of Virginia were subjected for a number of years 

 to great suffering, privation, and want. They were badly selected 

 and many of them were improvident and never trained to habits 

 of industry and thrift. There were quite too many "penniless 



