THE BREEDS OF HORSES. 229 



keeping the race free from further admixture, 

 although with the Russians, as with us, the 

 question is not very well settled as to what con- 

 stitutes the best trotting pedigree, and purity 

 of blood is a rather vague and indefinite term 

 when applied to the Orloff as well as to the 

 American trotter. The Count had been an en- 

 thusiastic patron of the race course as a means 

 of developing and testing the powers of his 

 horses, and since his time the government has 

 given its powerful aid to promote the same 

 object, not only by establishing breeding studs, 

 but by furnishing more than one-half of the 

 prize-money that is contested for at these trot- 

 ting races, which have been held regularly in 

 that country for the last sixty years. Russian 

 trials of speed are regulated by law, and the 

 driver or owner who violates any of the rules 

 which have been laid down to secure fair con- 

 tests is liable to take an unceremonious trip to 

 Siberia at government expense a punishment 

 that, as might be supposed, is much more effect- 

 ual in suppressing fraud than is that of an edict 

 of expulsion issued by our National Trotting 

 Associations. 



I had the pleasure, a few years ago, of meet- 

 ing Mons. Jules Goujon, who has long been a 

 resident of Moscow, and who is intimately con- 

 nected with the turf sports of that country. 

 From him I learned many interesting particu- 



