CHAPTEE 11. 



PHILOSOPHY OF TROTTING. 



MENTAL IMPULSES PHYSICAL CONEORMATION SCOPE AND VALUE 



OF MEASUREMENT. 



At the threshold of the subject of breeding the trotting horse, we 

 are met with the question, In what does the distinctive trotting qual- 

 ity consist? What is it that gives him type, character and value as a 

 trotter as compared with a horse that goes at any other gait? Is it 

 habit? or instinct? the result of acquired or inherited nerve or mental 

 quality? or is it the necessary and inevitable working of a certain phys- 

 ical conformation that carries with it adaptation? Is it either of these 

 separately, or is it the joint produce and result of all combined? 

 Upon this subject I may say here, that much has been advanced by 

 those who have undertaken to write upon the trotting horse, and many 

 of my recent critics have not confined themselves to giving us their 

 own ideas and opinions, but have manifested some enterprise in 

 attempting to give mine before I had u.ttered them. I commend to 

 all such a habit that I have fovind useful — that of treating of only one 

 branch of a sul^ject at a time; for if I fail in that, I should hardly hope 

 to succeed by combining several that were equally difficult. Besides, 

 it is not always safb to guess at one's opinions on one subject from 

 what he utters on an entirely different one. 



In general terms I may say, that this trotting quality is partly de- 

 pendent on both mental or nerve organization, and physical conforma- 

 tion. The same may be said of the element called speed. Unless the 

 horse has form and physical adaptation to the trotting action, and also 

 to speed, he can not trot or go fast. Unless he has a mental or ner- 

 vous habit inclining him to trot, he will not choose and tenaciously 

 adhere to that gait; and unless he has a quick temperament and a 

 highly-organized nervous composition, he will not go fast at any gait. 



(53) 



