186 THE HORSE OF AMERICA, 



outcast and a disgrace to the family, condemned to a life of in- 

 feriority and drudgery, he has been brought out and exhibited to^ 

 the public as a son and heir and the equal of the best. In looking" 

 back over the trotting records of twenty years ago, any one will 

 be surprised to observe that at all the leading meetings of the' 

 whole country there were no pacing contests. Occasionally at 

 the minor and local meetings of the middle Western States, a> 

 pacing contest would be given for a small purse, in which local 

 and obscure horses only would be engaged. Very naturally the^ 

 owners of pacing horses protested against this practical exclusion 

 of their favorites from the trotting meetings, and employed all 

 their energies in begging for admission. When they began to be 

 really clamorous the managers of trotting tracks argued that 

 there could be no profit to them in opening pacing contests, for 

 nobody cared about seeing a pacing match, that the entries would 

 not fill, and especially that there would be no betting, that, con- 

 sequently, the pool-sellers would have nothing to divide with the 

 management. As the receipts for pool-selling and all other 

 gambling privileges were making the track managers rich, they 

 were very slow about admitting an untried element that might 

 diminish their profits. But gradually and patiently the pacers 

 worked their way into the exclusive circle, and when they ap- 

 peared 'everybody, especially in the Eastern States, was surprised 

 to see what excellent hordes they were and the terrific speed they 

 showed. Instead of the typical pacer, as formed in the popular 

 mind, with the low head, bull neck, low croup, hairy legs, ex- 

 uberant mane and tail, and generally " Canuck" all over, that 

 would stop at the end of the first half-mile, here was an array of 

 horses that in make-up and gameness would average just as well 

 as the same number of trotters. This was a revelation to great 

 multitudes of people, and from that time forward the pacer had 

 a fair show, on his merits. For hundreds of years the pacer, 

 with very few exceptions, has been able to show a little higher 

 rate of speed than the trotter. When Flora Temple smashed all 

 records in 1859 by trotting in 2:19f, Pocahontas had drawn a 

 wagon, five years earlier, in 2:17-J; and when Maud S. trotted in 

 1885 in 2:08f, this beat all laterals as well as diagonals, except 

 Johnson, who the year before had paced in 2:06^. In 1894 Alix 

 trotted a mile in 2:03f,which stands the best at this writing, but the 

 same year Robert J. paced in 2:01-J, and John E. Gentry in 2: 

 in 1896. 



