470 THE AMERICAN TROTTING HORSE. 



in 55 minutes. At about this period a variety of roadsters called 

 Norfolk trotters came into notice in England, and still maintain a 

 good reputation there, though none of them have ever attained a 

 speed that would be considered very fast here. In Russia a breed 

 of trotters was established by the energy and skill, as a breeder, of 

 Count Alexis Orloff, in the latter part of the last century. They 

 are called Orloffs, and are inferior in speed to American trotters. 



Trotting as a public amusement began somewhat later in this 

 country. Porter's Spirit of the Times, of December 20, 1856, 

 states : " The first time ever a horse trotted in public for a stake 

 was in 1818, and that was a match against time for $1000. The 

 match was proposed at a jockey-club dinner, where trotting had 

 come under discussion, and the bet was that no horse could be 

 produced that could trot a mile in 3 minutes. It was accepted by 

 Maj. Wm. Jones, of Long Island, and Col. Bond, of Maryland, but 

 the odds on time were immense. The horse named at the post was 

 Boston Blue, who won cleverly, and gained great renown. He 

 subsequently was purchased by Thomas Cooper, the tragedian, who 

 drove him on several occasions between New York and Philadel- 

 phia, thereby enabling him to perform his engagements in either 

 city on alternate nights." This performance was more than twenty 

 years later than the first public trotting in England, where the 

 sport was then receiving some encouragement ; and Boston Blue 

 was taken to that country, where he trotted 8 miles in 28 m. 55 s., 

 winning a hundred sovereigns. He also trotted several shorter 

 races, making about 3 m. time. He was a rat-tailed, iron-gray 

 gelding, 16 hands high, and nothing is known of his pedigree. 



Trotting received very little attention here until after 1820, 

 when the descendants of Messenger attracted notice by their speed, 

 spirit, and endurance — chiefly about Philadelphia and New York. 



In 1825 the New York Trotting Club was organized, and estab- 

 lished a trotting course on Long Island. 



In 1828 the Hunting Park Association was established in Phila- 

 delphia — "for the encouragement of the breed of fine horses, espe- 

 cially that most valuable one known as the trotter." Its course, 

 known as the Hunting Park, was located about four miles north of 

 the city. 



Before the era marked by the organization of these two associa- 

 tions, three minutes was about the shortest time in which any horse 

 here or in England had trotted a mile. In imitation of the four- 

 mile running heats then and now common, the first trials of trot- 

 ting speed were usually for three miles or more ; and effort was not 

 then directed to the development of the greatest degree of speed 

 for a single mile. For several years, two and three-mile heats were 

 trotted at about the rate of 2 m. 40 s. to the mile, and that was 



