66 PHILOSOPHY OF TROTTING. 



sey, and was sixteen and a quarter hands high; taken to Kentucky in 

 IHU. 



It is not difficult to see wherfe she got her staunch grey color; and 

 to my mind, the peculiarity in the conformation and action of her 

 front legs had an origin as easily explained. It was often observed of 

 J>ady Thorn, that she did not bend her knees much in trotting; and 

 the point has been made that in her later years, after a long career on 

 the turf, she appeared to bend them more readily than at first — that 

 this proves that this matter lies in the knack, and not in conformation. 

 The difficulty lay in conformation ; but- the knack, or skill that caused 

 or accompanied the improvement, came from training and practice; 

 and when out of training and practice, the obstacle of ill adaptation 

 returned. The horse with heavy forequarter and shoulder, the readily 

 recognized natural pacer — the Blue Bulls and the Cadmus family — 

 may, by art and appliances of proper weights, be taught to trot, with, 

 however, a strong tendency to break into the gallop, and, when once 

 broken up, hard to catch at the trot. This capacity, however, they 

 can attain in spite of their adverse conformation; and when in high 

 condition of skill and training, their lack of form yields to their 

 reconstructed impulse; but when out of training, the educated 

 impulse yields to the physical obstacle of mal-conformation. It is 

 oasy to see how a horse that lacks knee-action can, by practice and 

 the application of weights, increase it; but it is not so easy to see how 

 excessive pounding of the ground, in the opposite form, can be cured. 



Smuggler lifts his knees too high because his forearm is too short, 

 and his front cannon-bone too long. The same objection, in less 

 degree, may be found to the front legs of Fullerton, and generally to 

 those Avhich have come by descent from the race -horse Henry and 

 the Morse horse, except as modified by crosses wherein the defect 

 was in part corrected. For trotting purposes there may be too little 

 bending of the knees, but there is mcjre frequently too much. 



The sire of the Morse horse was knee-sjirung; and an inspec- 

 tion of his descendants shows, that a cannon about 13 inches, and a 

 forearm about 20 inches, in length, are their relative proportions gen- 

 erally. Smuggler is also 12 and 20. The only son of Hambletonian 

 I ever found that bent his knees and lifted them excessively high, 

 was August Belmont, lately owned by Messrs. McFerran, in Kentucky. 

 He was a large horse, very powerfully organized, and displayed an 

 immense propelling power behind; but he lifted his knees so high, 

 and trotted with such high-stepping and short-reaching action, that his 



