HOW THE TROTTING HORSE IS BRED. 521 



record of 2:35 or better. (3) Has a sire or dain that is already a standard 

 animal. 



FIFTH. Any mare that has produced an animal with a record of 2:30 or 

 better. 



SIXTH. The progeny of a standard horse when out of a standard mare. 



SEVENTH. The female progeny of a standard horse when out of a niare by 

 a standard horse. 



EIGHTH. The female progeny of a standard horsa when out of a mare 

 whose dam is a standard mare. 



NINTH. Any mare that has a record of 2:35 or better, and whose sire or 

 dam is a standard animal. 



From the indefinite and unsatisfactory starting point, and 

 without any rule or guide as to what should be admitted, except 

 the pointless phrase, "well related to trotting blood," it soon be- 

 came evident that the Register would soon contain as much chaff 

 as wheat. Through the Monthly, which was established for 

 that purpose, I did not despair of the success of my aim in lead- 

 ing the intelligent breeders of the country up to the point of 

 recognizing and establishing the American trotting horse as a 

 BREED. The road was long, steep, rough in places, and beset 

 with prejudices on all sides, but labor conquers all things, and 

 we have in the standard and its revision, as given above, the 

 culmination and perfection of the implements that were to effect 

 this purpose. To reject a horse from registration merely because 

 he was running bred would have been "flying in the face" of the 

 prejudices of nearly everybody, but to reject him because neither 

 he nor any of his tribe had ever been able to trot, was philosoph- 

 ical and just; and as it gave no section of the country an advan- 

 tage over any other section, and no theory an advantage over a 

 fact, no man could gainsay or criticise its justice or its truthful- 

 ness. This was the wedge that split the rock of ignorance and 

 prejudice, and thus exploded the theories of generations as to the 

 value of running blood in the trotter. As I look at it to-day, 

 the undertaking to gather up a great lot of fragments and con- 

 vert them into a breed was a tremendous one, and although it 

 was backed up with brains and influence, it is doubtful whether 

 many of its promoters had any very clear conception of the re- 

 sults that would follow either its success or its failure. It 

 assumed to direct and control the trotting-horse breeding interest 

 of the whole country, and to leave its impress for all time. It 

 required no gift of prophecy to see this as the result of success, 

 and neither did it require any gift of prophecy to foresee that 



