The Multiplication of the Pacer 3^9 



walked or running-walked seven or eight miles 

 an hour, never requiring or allowing rider to use 

 whip or spur." 



Much color, if not fiction, was infused into 

 these early descriptions, and I quote them to 

 show how the ancestors of pacing horses were 

 regarded by the warm-blooded people of Ten- 

 nessee. The Tom Hal family is the live pacing 

 family of Tennessee and America. 



In 1876, when the chestnut mare from Ten- 

 nessee, Mattie Hunter, who acquired a record of 

 2.i2f, paced a series of races in the Grand Cir- 

 cuit with Rowdy Boy, Lucy, and Sleepy Tom, 

 the public heart was fired by the whirlwind 

 rushes, and the stewards of the circuit awoke 

 to the fact that a field of fast pacers w^as a draw- 

 ing card, and there was an upward trend in the 

 value of purses for pacers. Sleepy Tom was a 

 chestnut gelding by Tom Rolfe, and, although 

 totally blind, fought his races with great deter- 

 mination. The confidence that he reposed in 

 his driver was wonderful. He obtained a record 

 of 2.1 2i. In 1883 the brown gelding Richball 

 was a circuit sensation, beating such horses as 

 Westmont, Gurgle, Flora Belle, Sleepy Tom, 

 Buffalo Girl, and Lucy, and by this time nearly 



