GENERAL VIEW OF THE FIELD. 17 



in a form that was somewhat tentative, and much less didactic 

 than my judgment suggested, but it served as an introduction to 

 the study of the question which it foreshadowed. From this 

 initial paragraph grew the discussion that has been going on ever 

 since, much of which has been the merest jargon. The essential 

 oneness of the trot and the pace has been clearly demonstrated by 

 thousands of experiences. The trotting inheritance that pro- 

 duces the fast trotter also produces the fast pacer; and the pacing 

 inheritance that produces the fast pacer also produces the fast 

 trotter. The trotting-bred John R. Gentry, with his pacing 

 record of a mile in two minutes and one-half a second, is but a 

 single instance of very many of the same character. The fastest 

 harness racers in the world are the pacers, and it seems to make 

 no difference whether the inheritance of speed comes from the 

 trotter or the pacer. The subject of the pacer in his diversified 

 historical relations to the American trotter will be found in dif- 

 ferent portions of this work, and all tending to show the signifi- 

 cant fact that he is again rapidly attaining the position of honor 

 among the equine race which he maintained for so many centuries 

 in the far-distant past. 



Early in this century the American Saddle Horse, the real 

 saddle horse of all time, past and present, began to vanish from 

 sight. Improved roads and wheeled vehicles superseded him, in 

 great measure, long before the days of railroads. For business 

 and travel he was the sole dependence of our forefathers for two 

 hundred years, and in point of health it is a great misfortune 

 that he has gone so completely out of use. The horse that cannot 

 take the "saddle gaits" and carry his rider without discomfort or 

 fatigue is not a saddle horse. Springing up and down at every 

 revolution of the horse is not riding for pleasure, but to avoid 

 punishment and a torpid liver. In the chapter devoted to his 

 description, origin, and breeding, it will be clearly shown that he 

 is indebted to his pacing ancestry of the past centuries for his 

 saddle gaits. As the mere matter of great speed cuts no figure in 

 the qualifications of a saddle horse there is a wide field here for 

 the production of style and beauty in the breeder's art. The aims 

 of a goodly number of intelligent breeders are now moving in this 

 direction, and with the foundations so well laid as they now are, 

 we can look forward to a grand superstructure. As the breeder 

 of speed at the trot goes to the horse that can do it himself, and 

 as the breeder of speed at the gallop goes to the horse that can 



