THE LIGHT-HARNESS BREEDS OF HORSES 101 
equal footing. The craze for speed and the desire to put 
the get of stallions in the list, increased the popularity of 
the pacer at a bound. 
It was found, too, that it was a very easy matter to 
change the gait of most horses from trotting to pacing, 
especially with the use of hobbles or hopples, as they are 
interchangeably designated. This leads us to say that 
the difference in the gaits is simply that in the pacer the 
two legs on the same side move together, while in the 
trotter the movement is diagonal. By putting a horse 
in hobbles, he must either pace or break the hobbles, 
which are so strong as to be almost unbreakable, or be 
thrown. Hobbles have been permitted in races, but 
owing to the danger to the driver if any entanglement 
occurs, they have not become popular except to keep 
horses that show a tendency to pace at that gait or train 
them until they can do without them. At its meeting on 
February 5, 1908, the American Trotting Register Asso- 
ciation adopted a resolution against the use of hobbles. 
It was found that a change in the shoeing, such as shoeing 
very light all round, would encourage a horse to pace ; 
and even the shifting of the bit may accomplish the 
same purpose. 
After the craze for speed at any cost had subsided some- 
what, and a different time limit been set for the pacer 
before he could become standard, the winnings possible 
for green trotters increased, and with that the purses and 
colt stakes for trotters were augmented so that trotting as 
a part of the sport of racing became again more than on a 
par with pacing. The pacing standard now in force is 
appended. It should be said that it is identical with the 
trotting standard except that the word “ pacer” is sub- 
stituted for the word “ trotter ’’’ and the word “ pacing ” 
