222 A TREATISE ON HORSE-BREEDING. 



and that most horses can be taught to adopt 

 either the one gait or the other at the pleasure 

 of the rider or driver, as an intermediate man- 

 ner of progression between the walk and the 

 gallop. Instances where horses that have 

 shown unusual speed as pacers have been 

 changed into speedy trotters, mainly by in- 

 creasing the weight of the shoes on the fore 

 feet, are of every-day occurrence; and trotters 

 may with equal facility be taught the pacing 

 gait by the use of "hobbles" so adjusted as to 

 compel the animal to move both legs on the 

 same side together, instead of moving the fore 

 leg in unison with the hind leg on the opposite 

 side, which constitutes the difference between 

 the pace and the trot. 



The success which has attended these and 

 other methods of changing horses from one 

 gait to the other, and the further fact that 

 horses which show great speed as pacers so 

 frequently descend from the well-established 

 trotting families, has led to the generally-es- 

 tablished belief among horse-breeders that the 

 trotting and pacing gaits are essentially the 

 same; or rather that the taking of the one gait 

 or the other is more a matter of accident or 

 training than of inheritance. I cannot sub- 

 scribe to this theory myself, however, further 

 than to admit that the form which is usually 

 found in the fast pacer (a rather steep rump, 



