64 PHILOSOPHY OF TKOTTING. 



trotter; but he is freciuently " off," and the slight circumstance above 

 referred to has an important bearing' on the question. Smuggler, the 

 king of all stallions in speed and liigh mental and nerve organism — 

 who went for a distance of 800 feet, at Cleveland, at a rate of speed, 

 perhaps, never equaled by another trotting horse— lifts his knees so 

 high as to cause the forearm to rise to an ansfle of 45 decrees, and 

 strikes the ground with a force that is simply terrific. He hurled the 

 dust of defeat in the face of all competitors in the beginning of the 

 campaign, but succumbed to more than one before he was through the 

 circuit, while the twenty-year-old Queen went on conquering and to 

 conquer. 



But, my reader will inquire, is there such a matter as exact propor- 

 tion or length of limb that can be determined by measurement — bv 

 tape-line — that will apply to all horses, and hold good as a rule or 

 standard. I answer, that there is no such scale or standard. " Then," 

 says my friend, " if there is not, I see no way of deducing therefrom 

 * a system that will hold good,' " It is perhaps impossible to deduce 

 a system of measurement that shall apply to a piece of physical 

 machinery with unvarying certainty, as we can not understand or 

 measure, or even estimate, all the hidden and unseen agencies and 

 nerve influences that operate on that machinery; but if we can out- 

 line the subject, and learn something of the mean excellence, and how 

 to avoid and reject the extremes of disproportion, we shall have 

 advanced much in the true science of producing animal machinery 

 specially adapted to particular ends. 



In studying this question of conformation, and reaching compara- 

 tive results, by exact measurement, a knowledge of the peculiarities 

 of different families is indispensable, and their varying peculiarities 

 must always be kept in mind. We shall also have occasion to observe 

 that certain bloods, marked by a peculiarity of proportion, have a 

 tendency in interbreeding progressively to increase that peculiarity. 

 Instances of this are found in the Messenger, the Diomed and the 

 Duroc blood. It has, from the earliest period of our trotting history, 

 been observed, that the Messenger family lacked in what is commonly 

 called knee-action. On a close study of their front legs, it will be 

 found that the forearm is very long and the cannon-])one very short. 

 This may be said to be an universal trait; and when it has been long 

 or deeply in-bred, the excess tends to make the animal calf-kneed. 

 For a little reflection will enable us to see, that a horse whose knee is 

 relatively very low, will have a tendency to become calf-kneed, or to 



