THE HORSE—INTRODUCTION. 29 
advanced that the pacing gait and abit result from an intermixture of tem- 
peraments, not producing growth, as was the case with the draught horse, 
but the predominance of the physical structure of the one and the mental! 
quality of the other, though by what physiological process or law this takes 
place is only guess-work. 
To illustrate our meaning we will take as an example the stout 
and rugged northern horse, of which the French Canadian is a familiar ex- 
ample, disinclined to a gallop or any gait less leisurely than a walk, slow 
and difficult to arouse, activity at any gait an impossibility. On the other 
hand, we know that the Arab or thoroughbred has a nervous energy and a 
constant desire to go, but at a gallop; he can not restrain himself to trot, 
having no more trotting action than a cow, and he knows it and can never 
be taught to trot, but his swiftness at a gallop exceeds that of any other 
quadruped in existence. Now in the amalgamation of these extremes there 
may be produced, if not in the first cross, in some succeeding and more har- 
monizing remove, an animal that has the physical structure, angular frame 
and consequent angular action of his coarser ancestor, with the muscular re- 
finement and nervous temperament of the finer one. He desires to go fast; 
running would for him require great waste of muscular energy and be an 
arduous task at which he would soon tire; he could not effect the graceful 
canter and gallop; he could adopt a compromise of a walk, a square trot and 
a run, and such as would be easiest for him would be likely to be the 
pace, especially in his first steps when a colt at his mother’s side; and thus an 
original mental faculty would be developed. 
Without such a faculty in some ancestor the writer believes it 
is not possible to teach a horse to trot fast, for while the ability to trot 
is possessed by most horses, fast trotting can only be derived from a modifi- 
cation of the pacing faculty, and this we believe to be the origin of the “trot- 
ting instinct,” so called. This pacing habit once formed, like any other 
oddity, may be so fixed as to be perpetuated several generations without 
the necessity of doubling its strength, and even with doubling and redoub- 
ling may be difficult to preserve. 
A careful observation of Goldsmith Maid led the writer to the firm 
conviction that trotters derived their form and gait from a source other than 
the thoroughbred. In studying her over he concluded then and there that 
she had a pacing form, and suddenly the thought struck him that the key 
to trotting was the pacing faculty modified, an impression of which he 
could never free himself. Under date March 10, 1874, the writer sent the 
iollowing letter to Mr. J. H. Wallace, editor of the 7rotting Register: 
“I see in alate number of the ‘Sgiri”’ that you qualify your Messenger theory of 
trotting instinct by admitting pacers as next to Messenger stock for imparting that ir- 
Digitized by Microsoft® 
