ioo LIGHT HORSES: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



continues. This we much doubt. Every light -harness horse 

 the American breeds, the first question about him is, ' Can 

 he trot ? ' So that there will continually be additions to 

 trotting ranks from other sources of light horses as the 

 Hackneys, Coachers and Saddlers by occasional experiments 

 of trotting sires on such females, or vice versa. 



" Speaking of the 2:30 class, a high veterinary authority holds 

 that training for trotting predisposes to disease, and that there 

 is more probability of finding some capital blemish in a trotter 

 of speed than there is in others. This is but natural, how- 

 ever; the same holds good, doubtless, in regard to the 

 thoroughbred. Breeding ought to be, in both, a safeguard 

 against this predisposition. In the breeder's consideration of 

 this question it will be at once seen what a use * pedigree ' is 

 to him ; it teaches him what strong lines to draw to, which 

 weak ones to discard. It is here at once seen that the 

 ' deeper in ' he gets the safer he must be. 



" It is said that the thoroughbred blood has always been a 

 resource to draw from for staying powers. The late Senator 

 Stanford put into training a thoroughbred filly, well-named 

 Experiment, on the trotting turf. Considering the distinct 

 anatomical conformity of the two goers it would seem as if a 

 thoroughbred could not stand the pounding he must endure 

 on the trotting track. On this subject we may quote old 

 reliable John Lawrence, 1809, who says : ' It is a remarkable 

 fact that there has existed no instance of a thoroughbred 

 horse being a capital trotter. They soon become leg weary, 

 and their legs and feet are too delicate for the rude ham- 

 mering of the speedy trot.' 



" ' The advocates of the various theories of breeding,' re- 

 marked the editor of 'Wallace's,' 'are each finding their grain 

 of comfort in the unparalleled records of 1891. The trotting 

 purists claim the magnificent performance of the phenomenal 

 two-year-old Arion, 2:io|, and world's race records of Nancy 

 Hanks, 2:09, and Direct, 2:06 (pacer), as upholding their 

 theory. Those who believe that a thoroughbred should not 



