THE TROTTER. 43 1 



perfection by such men as Hiram Woodruff and Dan Mace. The 

 system of training, teaching, driving, and riding the trotting-horse of 

 the United States is an art of itself, peculiar to the country which has 

 bred St. Julien, Maude S., Rarus, and Goldsmith Maid. These horses 

 are superior by at least forty seconds in the mile to any trotters that 

 Europe can boast. " The English had the stock all along," says Hiram 

 Woodruff, "but it is our method of cultivation and perseverance that 

 has made the difference between their fast trotters of a mile in three 

 minutes and ours in two minutes and twenty seconds, or less." 



The development of the trotting-pace and the establishment of the 

 trotting-course is comparatively recent. The first American match 

 against time was in 1818; the wager was, that no horse could be pro- 

 duced to trot a '\e in three minutes. The horse named at the post 

 was Boston Blue, who won easily. He afterward became the property 

 of Thomas Cooper the tragedian. The same horse afterward trotted 

 eighteen miles within the hour. In 1824, the Tredwell mare trotted a 

 mile in two minutes thirty-four seconds, but for many years afterward 

 a two-forty horse was considered extra fast. In 1826, the first authen- 

 ticated record of authorized trotting is found. The New York Trotting 

 Club opened its course near the Jamaica Turnpike, about a mile below 

 the Union Course, Long Island, with a series of two-mile and three-mile 

 heats. The first two miles was done in five minutes thirty-six seconds ; 

 the second, in five minutes thirty-eight seconds. In 1827, the horse 

 Whalebone trotted fifteen miles in harness within the hour, performing 

 the last mile in three minutes five seconds. In 1828 the best time on 

 record was made by Screwdriver, at Philadelphia, by winning a three- 

 mile heat in eight minutes two seconds, beating the celebrated Topgal- 

 lant. In 1833, Paul Pry was backed to do seventeen and three-quarter 

 miles within the hour ; he won with the greatest ease, going eighteen 

 times round the Long Island Trotting Course, covering eighteen miles 

 thirty-six yards in fifty-eight minutes fifty-two seconds. He was ridden 

 " by a boy named Hiram Woodruff." Topgallant, Columbus, Collector, 

 Lady Jackson, and the best trotters of whom Hiram Woodruff makes 

 mention as having flourished about 1830, could not "knock off " their 

 mile in less than 2:50; but in 1834, Edwin Forrest beat the record by 

 trotting a mile in two minutes thirty-one and a half seconds. 



Coming down to more recent times, Flora Temple began her per- 

 'formances in 1850, and in 1853 she accomplished a mile in two minutes 



