THE TROTTER 71 



the last twenty years, trotting races have become very 

 popular in England, France, Italy, Austria and Russia, 

 and breeding farms for trotters have been established 

 in all of those countries. A large number of fast 

 trotters have been purchased in the United States and 

 taken to Europe for use on track and in the stud. The 

 races there are for longer distances than prevail here, 

 being from one- to five -mile heats. The custom could 

 well be followed on American tracks, as it tends to 

 produce horses of greater endurance on the track and 

 on the road. The English riding -horse goes at the 

 walk, trot and canter. No other gait is tolerated. 



That the ambler or pacer in England should dis- 

 appear where it was no longer desired, was the result 

 of a natural law. His origin was due to breeding and 

 training, and when all efforts in that direction ceased 

 his extinction followed. English books on the horse, 

 published more than two hundred years ago, contain 

 cuts of horses being trained to amble, rack or pace 

 by the use of mechanical devices, such as ropes on 

 the legs, iron balls tied to the ankles and obstructions 

 placed on the ground. In America, until within the 

 last century, the unsettled state of the country and 

 the absence of wagon-roads made horseback -riding the 

 usual mode of travel, and, for that reason, horses were 

 desired possessing an easier gait under saddle than 

 trotting. This made an extensive demand for the racker 

 or broken -gaited horse. Aside from training, the use 

 of a horse as a saddler, on rough roads, naturally 

 tends to impair the purity of his gait as a trotter, as 

 that gait is less comfortable to both himself and his 



