COLONIAL HORSE HISTORY PENNSYLVANIA, ETC. 141 



been represented that an old gentleman, whose name is forgotten, 

 imported into South Carolina a number of English race horses at 

 a period long anterior to this, but that claim has never been in a 

 shape that placed it above very grave suspicion and doubt; and 

 the claim accompanying it, in the way of apology, that the old 

 man would never allow any of his horses to race, did not improve 

 its credibility. From the advertisements just referred to, it 

 seems evident that there was no distinctively English running 

 blood in the colony till after this date. 



This review of the horses of the colonial period embraces all 

 that I have been able to glean of the character, qualifications, 

 size and habit of action of the earliest importations and their de- 

 scendants. Their diminutive size will be a surprise to my read- 

 ers as it has been to me, and the overwhelming ratio of pacers to 

 trotters will be a still greater surprise. The importance of in- 

 creasing the size by judicious selections of the largest seems to 

 liave been ever present to the minds of the colonists, but not 

 much could be accomplished in that direction, under the system 

 prevalent everywhere of roaming at large. The little pacers 

 were great saddle horses, and down to the days of good roads and 

 wheeled vehicles they were deemed indispensable. That there 

 were race horses among them at the running, pacing and trotting 

 gaits there is indisputable evidence, covering about a hundred 

 years of the colonial period, but there is no record of the rate of 

 speed. The pacer was the favorite and fashionable horse of that 

 period, and after something has been said about the Canadian 

 horse we will take up his history and treat it with that fullness 

 its importance demands. 



