510 A SHORT HISTORY OP THE 



passed skill in driving, the American trotting horse is greatly 

 indebted for the proud position he now holds. 



In 1834, at Trenton, N. J., Edwin Forrest, who had been 

 about a year on the turf, trotted a mile in 2 m. 36 s., and Columbus 

 in 2 m. 37 s., and the Turf Kegister of March, 1834, copies from a 

 Philadelphia paper the following comments on the race : " The 

 improvement of the trotting horse is engaging the attention of 

 some of the best sporting characters in the country. We believe 

 our State boasts of the best trotters in the Union. New York is 

 nearly as good as our own. It is, in our opinion, a sport which 

 should be encouraged." On May 9th, of the same year, Edwin 

 Forrest beat Sally Miller, on Long Island, in the then unprece- 

 dented time of 2 m. 31 J s., 2 m. 33 s., and soon after challenged any 

 horse in the world to contend with him at four-mile heats, for any 

 sum from $5000 to 810,000, without finding a taker. In 1836, 

 appeared two horses whose names frequently appear in the annals of 

 trotting, Awful, a tall, wiry, bloodlike looking bay, and Dutchman, 

 whose time for three miles stood for thirty years at the head of the 

 record, and has only once been beaten. Dutchman was a coarse 

 brown horse, 15 hands 3 inches high, very powerful and of uncom- 

 mon resolution and endurance. He had formerly worked in the 

 lead of a team which carted bricks in Mr. Jeffries' brick yard at 

 Philadelphia, and did his full share of the heavy work. He might 

 have remained in obscurity all his life if an important election had 

 not occurred, and Mr. Jeffries' regular carriage horse falling lame 

 Dutchman was pressed into the service of carrying the free and 

 independent voters to the polls. He performed so well, albeit the 

 loads were heavy, that Mr. Jeffries concluded that he would make 

 a trotter, and he left the brick yard forever. Transferred to the 

 turf, he soon took his place at its head, which he held for seven 

 years against such competitors as Awful, llattlcr, Eifle, and the 

 renowned Lady Suffolk. In 1836 he trotted four mile heats 

 under the saddle, in 11 m. 19 s. and 10 m. 51s. ; the time of 

 the second heat has only once been beaten. His three-mile race 

 with Hattler over the Beacon Course, in 1838, shows the severity 

 of the contests of those days, and an endurance of which we are 

 afraid few of the flyers of to-day can boast. The first heat Rattler 

 won by half a length in 7 m. 54i s., the second Dutchman won 

 in 7 m. 50 s., the third heat was dead in 8 m. 2 s., and the fourth 

 Dutchman won in 8 m. 24 i s. Hiram Woodruff, who drove Dutch- 

 man, says of this race : " Just such a race as this it has never been 

 my fortune to see since, and nobody had seen such a one before. 

 For eleven miles the horses were never clear of each other j and, 

 when Dutchman left Kattler in the twelfth, it was by inches only. 

 Moreover, there were but two breaks in this race, and each horse 



