io6 The Book of the Horse. 



like forty years since Mr. Ramsdale started breeding that sort of horse. We have kept on 

 improving them ever since. We try to keep them as near as possible to the pure breed of 

 roadsters, crossing them with the best blood we can get with a stepping horse. But now 

 farmers prefer a thoroughbred if they have a good nag mare. A colt out of a nag mare, 

 by a thoroughbred horse, at three years old will fetch sometimes ;^I20." 



TROTTING HORSE REGISTER. 



In August, 1878, an attempt was made to establish a stud book for roadsters, cobs, ponies, 

 and hackneys, under the editorship of Mr. H. F. Euren, of the Norwich Merciuy. At a 

 meeting called at Downham, over wliich Mr. Anthony Hammond, of Westacre, M.F.H., 

 presided, it was stated that for the previous six years above a hundred roadster stallions 

 had been exported every year. France, Germany, Austria, Italy, and America, as well as the 

 Indian Government, were amongst the importers. 



"Mr. Euren, of the Norwich Mercury, the promoter, explained that 'the first object of the 

 register would be to put on record, in as complete a manner as possible, the pedigrees 

 and all that was known about horses which had travelled in Norfolk, Yorkshire, and other 

 counties, or had been exhibited at the local and Royal shows. This would establish pedi- 

 grees once and for all. The next thing it was desirable to have in the register was as 

 complete a record as possible of really good hackney mares of known breeding.' " At this 

 meeting Mr. Wallace of New York, editor of the American " Trotting Horse Register," which is 

 supported by the American Association of Trotting Horse Breeders, stated that "in 1822 

 Mr. J. Boot of Boston imported Bellfounder, a Norfolk trotting horse, bred by a Mr. Farrar. 

 It was part of his business in England to trace the pedigree of Bellfounder, as he was imported 

 with an impossible and fictitious pedigree. Bellfounder's blood mingled kindly with old 

 Messenger's blood, and that of the whole trotting family. The Hambletonians (a famous 

 American breed) were out of a mare by Bellfounder. Bellfounder was just such a horse as 

 he saw at Downham in the class for the roadster stallions under 15 hands 2 in. When he 

 saw that class he thought he must be in New England, where they had a family of horses 

 called Morgans, all trotters, with high action, stylish heads and tails, not so fast as the 

 trotters of the Messenger blood, but they mingled kindly with it, and gave it substance 

 and compactness. The Morgans were exceedingly gentle and kind." 



The proposal received the support of: — The Duke of Hamilton and Brandon ; the 

 Marquis of Bristol ; the Earl Spencer ; the Earl Romney ; the Lord Calthorpe ; Sir Thomas 

 Hare ; Sir W. B. Ffolkes, Bart., Norfolk. Messrs. A. Hammond, Master West Norfolk Fox- 

 hounds ; C. W. Wicksted, Master Ludlow Hunt ; J. J. Colman, M.P., Norwich ; E. Greene, M.P. ; 

 H. Aylmcr, Westacre; H. Birkbeck, Stoke Holy Cross; W. D'Urban Blyth ; C. Beart, Stow. 

 And there was a reasonable prospect of success in December, 1878. 



THE CONDITION OF THE HORSE SUPPLY IN 1874. 

 There has never been a period in the history of this country since books were ivrittcn that 

 there has not been a cry, a lamentation, over the decline and pro.ximato fall of the Bntish horse. 

 De Blundeville in the time of Queen Elizabeth ; the Duke of Newcastle in the time of Charles II. ; 

 De Berenger in the early years of George III. ; and since De Berenger, a host of publications 

 large and profusely illustrated quartos, pamphlets, and hecatombs of magazine articles, have 

 been devoted to essays to the same text. There is nothing extraordinary in thi.s. The oldest 

 man, the most profound student of our history, cannot name the date when " the Church was 



