THE TROT. 149 



To conclude this lecture with some accounts of the feats of trot- 

 ting horses, we cannot, that I know of, consult better authority 

 on what has been performed in days gone by than John Lawrence, 

 who appears, as well as being a sporting character himself, to 

 have been at some pains to chronicle these, performances. " The 

 fastest trotter" which, this writer has good reason to suppose, 

 " has ever been tried in England, was called ARCHER, from the 

 name of the person who brought him to London." Mr. Lawrence 

 could not conceive Archer's rate of trotting (for a short distance) 

 " could be below twenty-Jive miles an hour /" A brown mare, the 

 property of Bishop — a London dealer in horses — not so speedy as 

 Archer, but of greater strength and endurance, is said to have 

 been the first horse that ever trotted sixteen miles in one hour with 

 twelve stone of burthen, and she performed the distance in fifty- 

 eight minutes and some odd seconds. " In 1793, Crockett's grey 

 mare trotted one hundred miles in twelve hours, and had twenty 

 minutes to spare." — " In 1792, a yellow-bay gelding, called Spi- 

 der," * * " trotted twenty-four miles in an hour and an half." And 

 Mr. Lawrence's " own brown mare, known by the name of Betty 

 Bloss," * * " trotted fifteen miles in one hour, carrying fourteen 

 stone." Lastly, according to the same authority, " the brown 

 mare Phenomena performed seventeen miles in less than fifty-three 

 minutes, carrying a lad of five stone in weight ; and her proprietor 

 afterwards offered to match her to do nineteen, and after that 

 nineteen and a half miles within the hour, both of which offers 

 were declined. 



In our own days the Americans appear to have carried off the 

 palm for fast trotting. We learn from a newspaper called the 

 Spirit of the Times, published at New York, and dated 29th 

 July, 1843, that 



In June 1841, a bay gelding, called CONFIDENCE, trotted in 

 harness over the Beacon Course a mile in two minutes and thirty- 

 five seconds, beating a horse called Washington. 



In November 1842, DUTCHMAN, another bay gelding, performed 

 the same distance in the same time, ridden, over the Hunting Park 

 Course, beating the bay horse, RlFLE. 



In June 1841, Volcano trotted a mile over the Beacon Course 

 in the wonderfully short interval of two minutes and thirty-one 



