126 THE HORSE. 



to bis English contemporary, and fill his pockets with hard 

 cash. 



In the like manner, every tradesman, artisan, business man, 

 or mechanic, whose affiiirs require the service of a horse, in 

 America, keeps, as that by which he can alone combine profit 

 with pleasure, a fast and liardy trotter, of greater or less speed 

 or power, as the nature of his business may demand. 



So also, or far more, does the well-to-do person, who can 

 afford a horse, or a pair, purely for his amusement, keep such 

 as will afford him the only amusement which is to be had out 

 of horseflesh in America, as a general rule ; I mean, of course, 

 trotters for the road, either in harness or under the saddle — the 

 latter being, in fact, seldom to be seen ; for the two or three 

 Southern States, in which hunting on horseback exists at all, 

 are an exception, and not a rule ; and, even in these, the hunt- 

 ing itself is an exceptional and class amusement, confined en- 

 tirely to the aristocratic planters, and never attempted by the 

 city tradesmen. Farmers, in the usual sense of the word, there 

 are none to attempt it, in those States. 



There is yet another reason, wherefore horse-trotting will 

 always be a popular sport in America ; which is this, that the 

 utility of this class of horse and the great demand for it — similar 

 to the demand for hunters in England — having created a very 

 superior class of animals, trotting-courses naturally followed — 

 as steeple-chases have followed in England. 



Now, horse-racing and steeple-chasing can never, from their 

 very nature, become, in the true sense of the -w or d, jyojnda?'. 

 The people may love to be spectators, but can never hope to 

 become participators in them. Since the keeping up of racing 

 establishments, or even of hunting-stables, including a large 

 number of horses — applicable to no possible purpose of imme- 

 diate practical utility — a large number of servants of a particular 

 class, at extraordinary wages, and requiring almost unbounded 

 expenditure, beside involving abundant leisure, constant atten- 

 tion, and the ownership of soil, can never extend to others than 

 the few, the wealthy pleasure-seekers, of any community. The 

 masses can never pretend to those sports. 



The trotting-course, on the other liand, is common to all. It 

 is the trial-ground and arena of the roadster, open to every one 



