COLONIAL HORSE HISTORY PENNSYLVANIA, ETC. 139 



or more demoralizing in New Jersey than in some of the other 

 oolonies, but they seem to have been content with fulminating 

 against "horse racing" without specifying the different gaits at 

 which the horses might go in the race. Until this old colonial 

 statute was discovered, it was not possible to prove by contem- 

 poraneous evidence that there had been any pacing or trotting 

 races before the first decade of the present century. This, how- 

 ever, adds to their antiquity more than a hundred years. 



MARYLAND was really the first in point of time to legislate for 

 the suppression of pacing, as well as running races, but the old 

 statute, enacted in 1747, was not discovered till very recently. 

 This proves that pacing races were very common in Maryland one 

 hundred and sixty years ago, but it says nothing about trotting 

 races. It will be observed that in the New Jersey statute the 

 different kinds of racing are placed in this order: "Racing, pac- 

 ing and trotting," and I take this to mean the order of their 

 prominence. Applying this method to Maryland, it may be in- 

 ferred that trotting races were infrequent and practically un- 

 known, and hence not enumerated as offensive. Taking these two 

 cases together, I think we are justified in concluding that the 

 pacer antedated and preceded the trotter in all turf sports. No 

 doubt he was faster then than the trotter, and he has maintained 

 his superiority, in that respect at least, to this day. Maryland 

 was a great racing colony and it was afterward a great racing 

 State. This statute did not sweep over the whole colony, but 

 applied only to the race course at Newmarket, and Anne Arundel 

 and Talbot counties. As I understand the matter, this statute 

 was enacted specially at the request of the Society of Friends, 

 and for the protection of their yearly meetings. 



With Pennsylvania on the one side and Virginia on the other, 

 it is not necessary to spend any time on the sizes and gaits of the 

 horses of Maryland, for they were simply duplicates of those in 

 the two colonies with which they were in constant intercourse 

 and trade. In the matter of undersized stallions running at 

 large Maryland was more in earnest and more savage than any of 

 the other colonies. For, by an act of Legislature, passed 1715, 

 it was provided that any person finding an entire colt eighteen 

 months old, or an unbroken stoned horse, running at large, no dif- 

 ference what his size, might shoot him upon the spot. 



NORTH CAROLINA was first permanently settled by a colony from 

 Virginia, led by Roger Green, July, 1653. For some years pre- 



