496 THE HORSE OF AMERICA. 



declared that this "structural incongruity" is the result of 

 breeding the thoroughbred horse on the slab-sided, ill-shapen 

 mares of the West and Southwest. From the inheritance, part 

 of the animal is structurally formed to run and the other part 

 structurally formed to trot, and between the two a compromise 

 is made on the pace. In this "structural incongruity," between 

 the two parts the pacing gait originated, and hence whatever 

 speed the pacer may possess comes from the "thoroughbred;" 

 and, therefore, of necessity, whatever speed the trotter gets from 

 the pacer comes from the "thoroughbred." There are many 

 humbugs in the literature of the horse, but this is the craziest 

 humbug I have ever met with. What a pity he left his work un- 

 finished, and failed to tell us which end of the horse was running 

 bred and which end trotting bred, so that we might locate the 

 "incongruity" and cut it out! But to look at this "structural 

 incongruity" seriously, it lacks but little of a scandal on the in- 

 telligence and honesty of American writers on the horse. Here is 

 a gentleman of reputed intelligence, who wields a facile pen and 

 has been writing on breeding subjects for about thirty years, and 

 much of his work was well done; and now at the close of the 

 nineteenth century he undertakes to tell us how the pacer orig- 

 inated in this country. The veriest tyro in horse history knows 

 that pacers abounded in England in the twelfth century, and 

 indeed long before that. Every colony in this country was full 

 of pacers a hundred years before the first thoroughbred crossed 

 the Atlantic. But wild and absurd theories can safely be left to 

 the public judgment. 



It required several years of labor and iteration to convince the 

 breeding public that the trot and the pace were simply two forms 

 of one and the same gait. When first advanced it was received 

 by the more intelligent breeders as an abstraction that had noth- 

 ing practical in it, while those of less ability to think for them- 

 selves only laughed at it. Since then the inevitable processes of 

 experience have demonstrated its truth, and the question of to- 

 day is how to separate these two forms of the same gait and to 

 breed either form, as we may desire, as a distinct and certainly 

 transmissible gait. With a few it will still remain a matter of 

 indifference whether the colt comes a pacer or a trotter, but witL 

 the great mass of breeders the question of profit in breeding the 

 harness horse must be considered. Everybody knows that in the 

 market for road horses the clean-stepping trotter is worth more 



