THE AMERICAN TROTTER. 51 



unless they be trained and kept exclusively for sporting purposes. 

 This, however, is no more, but even less likely to occur than the 

 total alteration of the whole system of English road-making, and 

 the entire change of the tastes and habits of the English people : 

 since the point which renders the trotting horse so popular here 

 would then be wanting, namely, his equal adaptability to ordinary 

 road driving and purposes of general utility, and to occasional 

 matching and turf amusements of a peculiar though inferior descrip- 

 tion.'^ This is the true cause of the " decline and fall" of trotting 

 horses in England, for in the early part of the nineteenth century 

 there were ten good performers on the trot for one now. The pace 

 is not a natural one, and in its highest perfection, especially, it 

 must be developed by constant practice. But this is forbidden on 

 our modern roads, which, as Mr. Herbert truly remarks, would 

 ruin the legs and feet of any horse ridden or driven at such a pace 

 as to do a mile in two minutes and thirty seconds. I fully believe 

 that the horses of America have sounder legs and feet than those 

 of our own country, partly from being kept cooler in their stables, 

 partly from their being less stimulated by inordinate quantities of 

 oats and beans, but chiefly from their ancestors having been less 

 injured by hard roads than those of our own. If this is the case 

 we must have in every succeeding generation more and more diffi- 

 culty in getting sound roadsters, and such, I believe, is really 

 the fact. 



By many people it is supposed that the American trotter is a 

 distinct breed or strain of horses, and that we can in this country 

 easily obtain plenty of horses able to do their mile " within the 

 thirties," by importing individuals and breeding from them. This 

 hypothesis, however, appears to be unfounded according to the 

 evidence of Mr. HerlDert, as recorded in his " magnum opus," and 

 that of other writers in the New York sporting press. The former 

 gentleman, who is "well up" on this subject, says: — "And first 

 we shall find that the time trotter in America is neither an original 

 animal of a peculiar and distinct breed, nor even an animal of very 

 long existence since his first creation. Secondly, we shall find 

 that in an almost incredibly short space of time, owing to the great 

 demand for and universal popularity of the animal, united to a 

 perfectly devised, and now ubiquitously understood, system of 

 breaking, training, and driving him so as to develop all his quali- 

 ties to the utmost, the trotting horse of high speed, good endurance, 

 showy style of going, and fine figure, has become from a rarity a 

 creature of every-day occurrence, to be met with by dozens in the 

 eastern and middle states, and scarcely any longer regarded as a 

 trotter, unless he can do his mile in somewhere about two minutes 

 and a half. Thirdly, it will appear that the trotting horse is, in 

 no possible sense, a distinct race, breed, or family of the horse ; 



