THE AMERICAN TROTTER 45 



ridden or driven at such a pace as to do a mile in two minutes and thirty 

 seconds. I fully believe that the horses of America have sounder legs and 

 feet than those of our own country, partly from being kept cooler in their 

 stables, partly from their being less stimulated by inordinate quantities of 

 oats and beans, but chiefly from their ancestors having been less injured 

 by hard roads than those of our own. If this is the case we must have 

 in every succeeding generation more and more difficulty in getting sound 

 roadsters, and such, I believe, is really the fact. 



BY MANY people it is supposed that the American trotter is a distinct 

 breed or strain of horses, and that we can in this country easily obtain 

 plenty of horses able to do their mile " within the thirties," by importing 

 individuals and breeding from them. This hypothesis, however, appears to 

 be unfounded according to the evidence of Mr. Herbert, as recorded in his 

 " magnum opus," and that of other writers in the New York sporting press. 

 The former gentleman, who is " well up " on this subject, says : " And first 

 we shall find that the time-trotter in America is neither an original animal 

 of a peculiar and distinct breed, nor even an animal of very long existence 

 since his first creation. Secondly, we shall find that in an almost incredibly 

 short space of time, owing to the great demand for and universal popularity 

 of the animal, united to a perfectly devised, and now ubiquitously under- 

 stood, system of breaking, training, and driving him so as to develop all his 

 qualities to the utmost, the trotting horse of high speed, good endurance, 

 showy style of going, and fine figure, has become from a rarity a creature 

 of every- day occurrence, to be met with by dozens in the eastern and 

 middle states, and scarcely any longer regarded as a trotter, unless he can 

 do his mile in somewhere about two minutes and a half. Thirdly, it will 

 appear that the trotting horse is, in no possible sense, a distinct race, breed, 

 or family of the horse ; and that his qualities as a trotter cannot be 

 ascribed or traced to his origin from, or connection with, any one blood 

 more than another. It is true, and it is to be regretted, that of trotting 

 horses the pedigrees have been so little alluded to, and probably from the 

 nature of circumstances are so seldom attainable, that few, indeed, can be 

 directly traced to any distance in blood. Enough is known, however, to 

 show that some horses of first-rate powers have come from the Canadian or 

 Norman-French stock ; some from the ordinary undistinguished country horse 

 of the southernmost of the midland states ; some from the Vermont family ; 

 some from the Indian pony ; and lastly, some mainly, if not entirely, from 

 the thoroughbred. To no one of these families can any superiority be 

 attributed as producing trotters of great speed. All have shown their 

 specimens by means of which to claim their share in the production. Only it 

 may be affirmed, generally, that while some very famous trotting horses have 

 been nearly, if not entirely, thoroughbred, the low, lazy, lounging, daisy- 

 cutting gait and action of the full-blooded horse of Oriental blood is not 

 generally compatible with great trotting action or speed. Still it is true 

 that the best time-trotters have not the round, high-stepped action which is 

 prized in carriage-horses, or parade-horses for show, and which probably 

 originated and existed to the greatest extent in the Flemish or the 

 Hanoverian horse of the coldest of all imaginable strains of blood ; and that 

 they have in a great measure the long-reaching stride, the quick gather, and 

 the comparatively low step of the thoroughbred." 



