70 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 



half miles per hour. The American horses are^ 

 celebrated for their trotting. In general they are 

 not ridden, but driven, and that in a peculiar manner. 

 The driver leans back in his seat and keeps up a 

 steady pull on the reins ; as long as this continues 

 the horse runs, but stops the moment the reins are 

 relaxed. Tom Thumb, a celebrated American horse 

 belonging to Mr. Osbaldeston, was matched in 1829 

 to perform the wonderful feat of trotting a hundred 

 miles in harness in ten and a half successive hours. 

 The vehicle did not weigh more than one hundred 

 pounds, nor the driver more than ten stone three 

 pounds. The gallant little horse, which was but 

 fourteen hands high, completed the task in ten hours 

 and seven minutes ; twenty-three minutes within the 

 allott ed time, without being in the smallest degree 

 distressed. 



It used to be thought that no horse could in fair 

 walking contend with a man, who was a first-rate 

 pedestrian ; but the opinion was refuted by the per- 

 formance of a hackney named Sloven, that, in 1791, 

 beat a celebrated pedestrian by walking twenty miles 

 in three hours and forty-one minutes. Two years 

 afterwards the same animal walked twenty-two miles 

 in three hours and fifty-two minutes. 



The preceding statements are sufficient to display 



