116 THE HOUSE OF AMERICA. 



in a few both size and gait are given. The range of size is from 

 one of fifteen hands down to one of twelve hands, with more of 

 thirteen hands than any other size, either above or below. The 

 true average of the whole number is a little over thirteen hands 

 .and one inch, and none of them are called ponies. As further 

 -evidence of the small size of the colonial Virginia horses we find 

 that in 1686 the legislature of Virginia passed an act providing 

 for the forfeiture of all stallions under thirteen and a half hands 

 high found running at large. It provided that any person 

 might take up such stallion and carry him before a justice of the 

 peace, and if he measured less than thirteen and a half hands, 

 the justice was required to certify to the measurement and the 

 facts, and the horse passed legally to his new owner. 



As to the gaits I find just twice as many pacers as trotters. 

 Double-gaited animals, of which there were a few, I have here 

 classed with the pacers. That many of these little fellows were 

 very stout and tough is fully demonstrated by the fact that they 

 could run heats of four miles with a hundred and forty pounds 

 on their backs. This closes the first epoch in the history of the 

 Virginia horse. The fleet and compact little horse of thirteen to 

 fourteen hands had had his day, and he was now about to be 

 overshadowed by a greater in speed and a greater in stature. 

 Much of the blood of the little fellow that could run four miles 

 -and pace "at a prodigious rate," was commingled with the blood 

 of the English race horse, but whatever its triumphs, the lately 

 arrived "foreigner" took the credit. A man would have been 

 pronounced "clean daft" if at that time he had dreamed that 

 one hundred and forty years later the blood of this little pacer 

 would stand at the head of the great trotting interest of the 

 world. The tough little fellow has retained his qualities through 

 all the generations in which he has been neglected, despised and 

 forgotten, until he was taken up twenty odd years ago, and now 

 the names and achievements of the great pacers are as familiar 

 to the whole American people as ever were the name of the great- 

 est running horses. It is not known how long he continued to be 

 a factor in the racing affairs of Virginia, but probably not later 

 than about 1760. 



From about 1750 to 1770 seems to have been a period of great 

 prosperity in Virginia and, notwithstanding the general improvi- 

 dence of the times, many of the large landholders and planters 

 were getting rich from their fine crops of tobacco and their 



