374 THE HORSE OF AMERICA. 



understand the historical meaning of his words when "he always 

 spoke of him as of the best blood?" To answer these questions 

 we must make some reference to history. The Dutch horses 

 were a breed wholly distinct from the horses of the other colonies. 

 The colony of New Netherlands (New York) received its supply 

 from Utrecht,, in Holland, commencing in 1624 and a few years 

 following. In forty years they had so increased that the colony 

 was well supplied. These horses were about fourteen hands and 

 one inch high, which was about one hand higher than the horses 

 supplied to the English colonies. They were not only higher, 

 but they had more bone and muscle, and, I think, more shapely 

 necks. In every respect they were better, except that they were 

 not so good for the saddle, for the reason, as I think, that they were 

 not pacers. The standard that determined their superiority WHS 

 the higher prices at which they were bought and sold, over the 

 New England horses, as shown by the official reports of the 

 colony. When the colony passed under British rule, the first 

 governor immediately established a race course on Hempstead 

 Plains, Long Island, and there in 1665 the first organized race in 

 ibis country took place. This was long before the English race 

 horse had reached the character of a breed, and a round hundred 

 years before the first representative of that breed reached New 

 York. The horses that ran at Hempstead Plains were un- 

 doubtedly Dutch horses, for the inhabitants of New York and 

 Long Island attended these annual meetings in great numbers, 

 and as they were nearly all Dutch they would not have gone a 

 stone's throw to see an English horse run. These annual race 

 meetings were kept up a great many years by the successive 

 governors. 



In 1635 two shiploads of Dutch horses, from the same quarter, 

 chiefly mares, reached Salem, Massachusetts, and were sold at 

 prices enormously high as compared with the prices of those sent 

 from England to the same colony. These two shiploads added 

 materially to the average size of the horses of the colony of Mas- 

 sachusetts Bay, as shown by statistics, as well as the other colo- 

 nies getting their foundation stock from that source. We may 

 safely conclude, I think, that some of the descendants of these 

 shiploads were taken to the valley of the Connecticut when 

 Hartford was planted, for we not infrequently meet with the 

 term "Dutch horse" in the old prints of that valley. Besides 

 this source the valley of the Hudson was full cf them. They 



