THE HORSE OF AMERICA. 



has nothing to do with the questions propounded. As all 

 families of saddle horses have pacing blood, and as there is no 

 family without it, it may be taken as settled that the saddle 

 gaits come from the pacer. 



I notice that at least one of the present saddle gaits was culti- 

 vated more than three hundred years ago. Mr. Gervaise Mark- 

 ham, a writer of the sixteenth century, and probably the second 

 English author on the horse, says: "If you buy a horse for 

 pleasure the amble is the best, in which you observe that he 

 moves both his legs on one side together, neat with complete de- 

 liberation, for if he treads too short he is apt to stumble, if too 

 large to cut and if shuffling or rowling he does it slovenly and 

 besides rids no ground. If your horse be designed for hunting, 

 a racking pace is most expedient, which little differs from the 

 amble, only is more active and nimble, whereby the horse ob- 

 serves due motion, but you must not force him too eagerly, lest 

 being in confusion he lose all knowledge of what you design him 

 to, and so handle his legs carelessly." The orthography of the 

 work "rack" as used by Markham is "wrack/' and this is the 

 only place I have met with it in any of the old authors. Webster 

 defines the word "rack" as "a fast amble/' but Markham uses it 

 in contradistinction from the amble. It is worthy of note here 

 that the word "rack" is older than the word "pace," in its use 

 as designating the particular gait of the horse, and through all 

 the centuries it has been retained. Of all the gaits that are 

 subsidiary to the pace and derived from that gait, the rack is 

 probably the most common, and in many sections of the country 

 the pacer is called a racker. Eacking is often designated as 

 "single -footing," and in this gait as well as in the running walk 

 and fox trot, there are four distinct impacts in the revolution. 

 It follows, then, that they are not susceptible of a very high rate 

 of speed. 



In all the services which the horse renders and in all the rela- 

 tions which he bears to his master, there is no relation in which 

 they can be made to appear to such great mutual advantage as 

 when the one animal is carrying the other on his back. There 

 is no occasion on which a beautiful horse looks so well as when 

 gracefully mounted and skillfully handled by a lady or gentle- 

 man. And, I will add, there is no occasion when a lady or gen- 

 tleman, who is at home in the saddle, looks so well as when 

 mounted on a beautiful and well-trained American horse. Eng- 



