300 W. H. Brewer—Evolution of the Trotting-Horse. 
Before the present century the chief and almost sole uses of 
the horse were as an implement of war, an instrument of 
sport and ceremony, an index of rank and wealth and an 
article of luxury 
best adapted to all these, however much he may have varied 
as to size, strength and fleetness, was one whose fast gait was 
the gallop or run rather than the trot. For leisurely horseback 
traveling the ambling gait (or pacing gait as it came to be 
called in this country), was preferred. With increasing use of 
horses for draft, certain heavy but slow breeds were developed 
in the Old World, of which the Dutch, Clydesdale and Norman 
breeds are examples. : 
The causes which led to the cultivation of the trotting galt 
in this country, and the evolution of a breed with which it 
should be instinctively the fast gait were various, and the sepa- 
rate value of each asa factor in the problem would be very 
differently estimated by different persons studying the subject 
from different points of view. Now that he is so valuable and 
plays such a part as a horse of use, it is easy to see why a bree 
of trotting roadsters should be produced to meet certain 
important demands of our modern civilization. But this does 
not explain how the process actually begun. 
Reasoning a priori, the trotter, as a horse of use, should have 
originated in western Europe; as a matter of fact, he not only 
did not begin there, but he was unpopular there until well 
developed here. Locomotives began to draw armies to the 
From early colonial times horses have been more generally 
owned by the masses of the people here than in any country of 
western Europe. They have had a more general use in agrh 
