36 THE HORSE, ASS, AND MULE 



and restrained by the curb. His diagonal gait is thereby broken up and he flies 

 into a four-beat gait. The rack is easy for the rider, hard for the horse. It is 

 a showy gait, and is performed at great speed sometimes. The trainer who has 

 a fast racking horse will generally keep him on that gait when in the show 

 ring, hoping to dazzle the judge by the flashiness of the performance. . . . 

 This gait has been officially named the rack by the American Saddle Horse 

 Breeders' Association, and hence the name " single foot" should not be used, 

 as it merely leads to confusion among the uninformed. 



The five gaits recognized by that association are the walk, trot, canter, rack, 

 and the running walk, or slow pace, or fox trot. Any one of these three slow 

 gaits will answer. Some horses can go only one of them, some can show them 

 all. When a horse can show these five gaits he is called a gaited horse. 



Two notable families of American saddle horses are the Den- 

 mark and the Chief, and to these most of the more outstanding 

 individuals of the breed largely trace their ancestry. 



The Denmark family , as indicated on page 32, derives its name 

 from a horse named Denmark, sired by imported Hedgeford. 

 A son of Denmark, known as Gaines's Denmark 61, was a black 

 horse with white hind feet and of great beauty. He transmitted to 

 his offspring not only beauty but also graceful action. According 

 to the late David Castleman, 1 of the 3000 entries in Volume IV 

 of the studbook, 1282, or 42.7 per cent, have a direct male trace 

 to Denmark. Of these Gaines's Denmark has 1277, or practi- 

 cally a perfect percentage. Of the n,977 entries in the first 

 four volumes, 7311, or 61.4 per cent, trace to Denmark, while 

 Gaines's Denmark traces 7311 lines of male descent to 7301 of 

 his sires. A son of Gaines's Denmark foaled in 1855, named 

 Washington Denmark 64, transmitted the valued features of this 

 line in a marked degree. Another son, Diamond Denmark 68, 

 was the sire of Montrose 106, one of the notable sires of the 

 breed. Black Squirrel 58 (foaled in 1876, sired by Black Eagle 

 74) and Rex Denmark 840 (foaled in 1884, a great grandson of 

 Gaines's Denmark) hold distinguished places in this remarkable 

 family. This family represents the more refined type of the 

 American saddle horse, individuals tending to an extreme in this 

 respect and lacking in substance. 



The Chief family has its fountainhead in Mambrino Chief II, 

 a trotter foaled in 1844 in New York and ten years later taken 



1 American Saddle Horse Breeders' Register, Vol. IV (1911), p. VI. 



