THE ORLOFF TROTTER. 393 



came from the province of Viatka and from the region of the 

 Volga River. 



As the true source from which the Russian trotters have 

 drawn their ability to trot fast has not been developed nor deter- 

 mined by history, we must consider the problem in the light o* 

 the surrounding conditions, and possibly our American experi- 

 ences may lead to its solution. In 1873 Prof. Von Mittendorf, 

 at the request of the director-in-chief of the imperial stud, pre- 

 pared a very able paper on the scientific questions involved in 

 the establishment of a Government Register for the Orloff trot- 

 ters. In this paper he discusses the pace and the trot as both 

 original and natural gaits and insists that there are no outward 

 indications in form or shape by which the animal, when at rest, 

 can be decided to be a pacer or a trotter. In his own words he 

 says: 



" In answer to the question whether, from the form of a horse at rest, it 

 can be ascertained what gait would be easiest assumed by it, viz., trotting or 

 pacing, I must confess that I have never seen, read or heard of such marks, 

 and, indeed, there never are any symptoms or signs of inclination for pacing 

 in the proportions of any horse with the single negative exception, viz., that 

 great speed in one-sided motion does not agree with a large frame, which is 

 more adapted to leaping, and hence fast pacers are never found among large 

 horses." 



This is the view as taken by a Russian scientist of the distinc- 

 tion, or rather lack of distinction, between the trotter and the 

 pacer. I have not quoted this paragraph from Prof. Mittendorf 

 because it contained anything new in the economy of breeding, 

 but to prove that there were pacers in Russia and that their re- 

 lation to the trotter was considered in the formation of the rules 

 of admission to the Orloff trotting register. A very intelligent 

 writer, evidently a Russian and one who knew what he was talk- 

 ing about, contributed an interesting article to the New York 

 Sun of July 9, 1877, from which we get a clear and strong light 

 on the practical side of the Russian pacer, and I will here again 

 quote: 



" Up to the middle of the last century horses in Russia were not scientifi- 

 cally bred ; they ran wild in many parts of the country. Those caught on 

 the steppes of the river Don, and in the wilderness of the district of Viatka, 

 obtained early celebrity, which they still maintain. The Don horses are those 

 famous Cossack steeds about which so much has been written of late. The 

 Viatka horses, or Bitugues, as they are called, are the genuine trotters of 

 Russia, They are all pacers, equally remarkable for their speed and their en- 



