THE CARRIAGE-HORSE. 59 



secondly, the concussion which his feet suffer every time he 

 brings them down on the road cannot fail to prove detrimental 

 to their soundness. Free forward action is not open to these 

 objections. A horse which steps moderately without ' kicking 

 over a sixpence ' on the one hand, nor jarring his feet on 

 the other, is likely to prove the most useful, and last the 

 longest. There are plenty of good sound horses such as 

 this to be picked up for from 4o/. to 6o/., both in town and 

 country. 



Though scarcely pertinent to the present inquiry, in dealing 

 with the carriage-horse we should not allow it to be forgotten 

 that even among harness horses there is a racehorse, and, 

 although little known in this country, trotting and pacing 

 matches in America are more popular and more patronised by 

 the wealthy men in the States than flat-racing or steeplechasing. 

 The trotting races are usually run in mile heats, the best three 

 out of five, in harness ; the horses are driven in a light two- 

 wheeled vehicle with large wheels, the driver sitting close to the 

 horse, with his legs on each side of the flanks. The driver 

 with the rug that he sits on has to scale 150 Ibs. The tracks 

 are oval in shape, and at a distance of three feet from the inner 

 side of the track measure an exact mile. The matches are 

 always carefully timed, and penalties are imposed on horses 

 that break from a trot into a run during the race. The records 

 of each horse are carefully kept, and the great ambition of an 

 owner of trotters is to beat the record. The best time ever 

 made for a mile was the 2 min. 8} sec. in which Maud S. 

 covered the distance, but there is a pacing record of 2 min. 

 6 sec. In addition to those kept in training for races in the 

 States, a very great number are used by gentlemen for their 

 private driving along the roads. Trotters are so little used as to 

 be practically unknown in England ; a few have been introduced 

 from America, but they have seldom repaid their importers for 

 their trouble. American harness horses used to come over and 

 be sold in England, realising good prices. Dealers have ex- 

 pressed a desire to get them now, but the owners of such animals 



