SECRETARY'S REPORT. 209 



Again, many very fleet horses when overdriven, adopt a dis- 

 agreeable gait, which seems to be a cross between a pace and a 

 trot in which 'the two legs of one side are raised almost but not 

 quite simultaneously. Such horses are said to " single," or to 

 be " single footed." 



When a trotter in rapid motion becomes weary, or overex- 

 cited, or loses his step or balance from any cause, he usually 

 begins to gallop, or in technical language he " flies up " or 

 " breaks up." The principal point in the art of driving, which 

 so few acquire in perfection is this, namely: to keep the horse 

 at the top of his pace without crowding him off his logs, and 

 next in importance is the power of quickly bringing him down 

 to his trot again after an unavoidable break. 



Young horses should rarely be urged to a break, and if they 

 show the least inclination to hitch or single they must be kept 

 back to a trot which they can perform correctly. The gait of 

 many naturally fine trotters is ruined by too much haste and 

 harshness in training. Horses should not be put to severe work 

 in trotting before six years of age, and do not arrive at their 

 greatest speed before they are ten or twelve. Flora Temple in 

 her first match on the Union Course, when five years old, trotted 

 the mile in two minutes and forty-nine seconds ; when eight 

 years old she trotted in two twenty-seven ; when eleven years 

 old in two twenty-four and a half, and when fifteen years old 

 she astonished the world by trotting a full mile at Kalamazoo, 

 Michigan, in two minutes nineteen and three-quarters seconds. 

 It has been affirmed, though probably without sufficient 

 reason, that the colts of old mares are more likely to be fast 

 trotters than those of younger ones. The dam of Flora was 

 five years of age when she produced the " phenomenon " of 

 the trotting track, and although still breeding on the farm of 

 Mr. Alexander of Kentucky, has not yet produced the equal 

 of her first born. 



While it is desirable that fast trotters should bear somewhat 

 upon the bit, they should not be allowed to draw the load with 

 the reins, because they not only exhaust themselves and their 

 drivers unnecessarily, but are very apt to be choked by having 

 the jowls drawn back against the neck. So much apparent 

 aid, however, do many trotters receive from a stiff, steady pull 

 upon the bit, that they seem to be thus enabled to trot much 



