194: THE HORSE OF AMERICA. 



pace. In this movement the hind foot strikes the ground an 

 instant before the fore foot on the same side, then the other two 

 feet are moved and strike in the same way; thus there are four 

 strokes in the revolution, in pairs. As each foot has its own 

 stroke we see the appositeness of the phrase i 'single-footing." 

 The four strokes are in pairs, as one, two three, four, and in many 

 cases as the speed of the horse increases the interval between the 

 strokes is lost and the horse is at a clean rapid pace. As a mat- 

 ter of course none of these gaits in which the horse makes four 

 strokes instead of two in the revolution can be speedy. They 

 are not developed nor cultivated for speed alone, but for the com- 

 fort and ease of the rider and the change from one to another for 

 the rest and ease of the horse. 



These "saddle gaits" are always derivatives from the pace, and 

 I never have seen one that did not possess more or less pacing 

 blood. A careful examination of the first and second volumes of 

 "The National Saddle Horse Register" establishes this fact be- 

 yond all possible contradiction. This work is a very valuable 

 contribution to the horse history of the country, but it is a mis- 

 fortune that more care has not been taken in the exclusion of 

 fictitious crosses in a great multitude of pedigrees. This trouble 

 is specially apparent among the supposed breeding of many of 

 the old stallions that are inserted as "Foundation Stock." The 

 tendency throughout seems to be to cover up and hide away the 

 very blood to which we are indebted for the saddle horse, and to 

 get in all the blood possible that is in direct antagonism to the 

 foundation of the saddle gaits. It can be accepted as a funda- 

 mental truth in horse lore, that from the day the first English 

 race horse was imported into this country to the present day, 

 which covers a period of about one hundred and fifty years, 

 nobody has ever seen, either in England or in this country, a 

 thoroughbred horse that was a pacer. When the old race horse 

 Denmark covered the pacing daughter of the pacer Cockspur, 

 the pacing blood of the dam controlled the action and instincts 

 of the colt, and in that colt we have the greatest of saddle- 

 horse sires, known as Games' Denmark. 



As this horse Denmark was by far the greatest of all saddle- 

 horse progenitors, and as his superiority has been widely 

 attributed to his "thoroughbred" sire Denmark, the son of im- 

 ported Hedgford, I have taken some pains to examine his pedi- 

 gree. His sire was thoroughbred, his dam and grandam were 



