2 Making the American Thoroughbred 



is to be out of fashion and destitute of taste. So I, too, 

 have procured a little of the real grit which by-and-by 

 I hope to increase." 



This thoroughbred industry had come to Tennessee 

 from Virginia and the Carolinas principally Virginia 

 where it had flourished since pre-revolutionary days from 

 the same causes which later made it "all the go" in 

 Tennessee and other Southern and Southwestern States. 



The English thoroughbred was a discovery the result 

 of scientific experiment. His speed and agility and his 

 ability to stand heat and hard service, though weighing 

 only about eight hundred pounds, attracted the attention 

 of scientists, both in England and the United States, to his 

 anatomy, especially to the solidity of his small bones and 

 muscles and to his lungs, neck and shoulders. His value 

 as a commercial asset was quickly perceived. He fit into 

 the needs of the times and his importation into Virginia 

 was based on business necessity and economy and was 

 in the natural order of events. 



When not engaged in the library, or in some public 

 assembly protesting against British oppression, Colonial 

 Virginia lived out of doors. Fox hunting was a popular 

 sport; the thoroughbred was the very thing for the 

 chase. In harness and under the saddle he solved the 

 problem of rapid transit in ease and comfort. For over- 

 land travel he was the fastest medium known. Through- 

 out a period when cross-country trips, forty, fifty, or a 

 hundred miles, to visit friends or attend political or re- 

 ligious conclaves were of daily occurrence, the thorough- 

 bred was considered as indispensable as all other more 

 rapid means of conveyance have been regarded since. 

 Practicing lawyers and judges on their circuits, pastors 

 and elders on their rounds and bishops on their annual 

 visitations found in him continual pleasure; not the least 



