n. 



Handling of the Ck)lt. — The Trot a Natural Gait. — Great Speed the ResaU 

 of Long Handling. — Method for the Colt. — ^Moderation best in Feeding. — 

 Early Maturity followed by Early Decay. — The Trotter should live 

 Many Years. — Feeding of Weanlings. — No Physic unless the Colt is 

 Sick. — Feeding of the Yearling. — The Starving System worse than 

 High Feeding. 



THE training of the trotting-horse is really to be com- 

 menced from the time he is handled when a colt ; for it 

 is not simply the putting of him in such bodily condition as 

 may enable him to exert all his powers, but also the careful 

 and continued cultivation of his gifts as a trotter. What- 

 ever encourages his tendency to make the trot his best way 

 of going, is a part of his training; and therefore the natural 

 disposition to trot must be improved from the very first. I 

 have heard it said by some that there is no natural disposi- 

 tion in a horse to trot, or rather was none until men had 

 handled him, and induced him to use that mode of action. It 

 is a very common notion that the horse has but two natural 

 paces, — the walk and the gallop, — and that trotting is wholly 

 artificial. I have seen this set down in some books, but I 

 venture to deny it. My conviction is, that the trot is natu- 

 ral to the horse ; and T feel bound to give some reasons for 

 my belief In the first place, then, I ask whether a colt 

 can now be found any where that docs not trot sometimes, 

 and that when he is by the side of his dam, before ever the 

 hand of a man has been laid upon him ? If it is said that 

 this results from tlie long domestication of liis ancestors, 

 my reply will be, that it happens among the produce of 

 horses whose ancestors for more than a century — ay, for 



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