THE AMERICAN RACE HORSE. 91 



as "Dutch horses/' and were descended from the original stock 

 brought from Utrecht, in Holland. They were larger than the 

 English horses, and brought better prices, although the latter 

 were esteemed more highly for their saddle gaits. I think the 

 Dutch horses, originally, had no natural pacers among them, but 

 for the pleasures and uses of the saddle they were inter-bred with 

 the English horses and the mixed blood soon produced many 

 pacers. It is probable also that this mixture increased the speed 

 of the whole tribe. Thus racing continued with but few inter- 

 ruptions and without any known changes in the rules or condi- 

 tions governing performances, except that after fifty years or more 

 the weight to be carried was reduced from ten stone to eight 

 stone. In the year 1751, which was eighty-six years after Gover- 

 nor Nicolls had established the Newmarket course on Long 

 Island, we find the following significant condition inserted in 

 the terms of entrance to the races, for the first time: "Free to 

 any horse, mare, or gelding bred in America." The simple 

 meaning of this new condition was to "head off" the scheme of 

 some "sharp" fellows who were, probably, then on the ocean 

 with two or three English race horses, witb which they expected 

 to "gobble up" whatever stakes or purses came within their 

 reach. 



The first record we have of racing in Virginia is to be found in 

 the court records of Henrico County, in the year 1677 twelve 

 years after the establishment of racing in New York. I^or fuller 

 particulars of this, the reader is referred to the chapter on that 

 colony. The Virginians were a horse-racing people from the 

 start, and it is impossible to tell how long before racing first com- 

 menced, but probably just as soon as any two neighbors met, each 

 owning a horse, a few hundred pounds of tobacco were put up 

 the next day, to make it interesting, in determining which was 

 the faster. This racing feeling was not confined to neighbors 

 nor to neighborhoods, but it pervaded the whole colony, and the 

 people of every county had their annual and semi-annual meet- 

 ings, which everybody attended. Their methods of handicap- 

 ping will strike the present generation as somewhat peculiar. In 

 their advertisements of the meetings, such language as the fol- 

 lowing was very common: "Sized horses to carry one hundred" 

 and forty pounds and Galloways to be allowed weight for 

 inches." From this we learn that the tribe of little Scotch pacers 

 were still to the fore on this side of the water and that they 



