216 A TREATISE ON HORSE-BREEDING. 



ress in the formation of a breed possessing a 

 reasonable degree of uniformity in conforma- 

 tion and in which superiority at the trotting 

 gait shall be an inherent and transmissible 

 quality. 



It may possibly become necessary to resort to 

 crosses outside of these trotting families for 

 improvement in some other quality; but there 

 is no out-cross that we can make without 

 danger to the transmission and improvement 

 of the trotting gait. Even those of our trotters 

 that belong to none of the recognized trotting 

 families are almost invariably the result of se- 

 lection with a view to this faculty. In almost 

 every case of " breeding unknown" we have 

 found that the dam was "a fast trotter." In 

 short, the more thoroughly we investigate the 

 course of breeding that has produced our trot- 

 ting horses the more completely does it confirm 

 the theory of breeding from animals that pos- 

 sess the quality we wish to perpetuate. 



Those who tell us that we must infuse more 

 of the blood of the thoroughbred into our trot- 

 ting strains, because that blood is the founda- 

 tion of all modern excellence in the horse, -find 

 their counterpart in those gentlemen of the old 

 school old fogies I had almost said who used 

 to be continually arguing for more of the blood 

 of the Orient in the thoroughbred. The argu- 

 ment in each case is identical. The blood of 



