1?8 BREEDING THE AMERICAN TROTTER. 



sale in any horse market of America ; but, if we breed for 

 speed alone without the other considerations, and get a little 

 animal that is not a fast trotter, — then what? Why, we had 

 better have raised a steer or mule with the same food and less 

 trouble and expense. 



The breeding of fine, stylish roadsters should prove a valu- 

 able auxiliary to the trotting-horse breeder whose main object 

 may be speed; consequently animals with not enough speed 

 for the trainer for fast records, may yet, if backed with en- 

 durance and a handsome form, with good disposition, be a 

 source of profit to the breeder and add to the wealth of the 

 community in which he is bred. 



Then, again, the demand for stylish, well-formed, spirited, 

 but withal, level-headed and ' kind horses for the road has 

 always been in advance of the supply. To breed trotters, the 

 culls of which (as to phenomenal speed) will be of this class, 

 the breeder should not only select as the sire a stallion from 

 the great families of sires so known to fame, but secure the 

 best individual specimens of strains that have excelled in pro- 

 ducing trotters, and breed them to mares that have stamina, 

 size, style, form, and endurance. 



Speed and the ability to produce speed are desirable charac- 

 teristics in a trotting sire and make a strong combination. It 

 is much easier to breed beauty than speed, and, on the whole, 

 perhaps quite as profitable in the long run. Beauty of form 

 and carriage does not detract from speed, and what is more 

 worthless than a homely trotter that has not speed enough to 

 be of any account as a race-horse, nor yet has the qualities 

 necessary to a good road-horse, and is not even fitted by nature 

 to be a good work-horse ? So, I reiterate : " Breed horses for 

 beauty, brains, and business." The first quality will always 

 attract customers who can and will pay the highest prices; 

 and brains — good horse sense — is an important factor in a 

 horse for any purpose. 



The standard craze, based simply on the merits of speed 

 alone for a single mile, has injured the trotting-horse interests 



