THE TROTTING-IIORSE OF AMERICA. 81 



pace without hitting, and he must trot very soon or fall 

 down. This method is sometimes adopted ; but it is much 

 better when the horse strikes a trot himself without these 

 impediments. This he is most likely to do after having 

 been driven a good distance and got tired. The reason 

 that should prevent us from driving a trotter when tired, 

 for fear of making him break his gait, will rather be for 

 driving the pacer when a little tired ; for his gait is not one 

 that we wish to preserve, and this is a means towards 

 the changing of it. It is more laborious than any other 

 way of going. The trotting-horse, moving the near fore- 

 leg and the off hind-leg together, and then the off fore-leg 

 and near hind-leg together, keeps upright, and is like a ship 

 sailing steady on an even keel. The pacer, moving both 

 near legs together and both off legs together, has a rocking 

 motion, like that of a ship in a rolling sea. The pacer, 

 though knowing no other gait but a gallop or a walk be- 

 sides his pace, is likely to change it for the first time when 

 he has been driven so far with that movement as to become 

 tired. If he then strikes a trot it eases him ; and it then 

 becomes the business of the driver to encourage him in his 

 new gait by every means. The best way to proceed with a 

 pacer that has struck a trot in this manner is put the roll- 

 ers on him the next time he goes out. The effect is the 

 same on him as on the young trotter whose gait has been 

 broken. They must be changed from leg to leg as occasion 

 may require ; and when a pacer is got to a square trot, he 

 is to be kept at it by the nicest kind of handling. Other 

 fast pacers beside those I have mentioned have made trot- 

 ters. Among them there was American Doe. Sim Hoag- 

 land handled her ; and drove her trotting in 2m. 39s., he 

 weighing more than two hundred pounds. 



