[Illustration: JOHN H. WALLACE.]
THE
HORSE OF AMERICA
IN HIS
DERIVATION, HISTORY, AND DEVELOPMENT.
TRACING HIS ANCESTORS, BY THE AID OF MUCH NEWLY DISCOVERED DATA,
THROUGH ALL THE AGES FROM THE FIRST DAWNINGS
OF HISTORY TO THE PRESENT DAY.
INCLUDING THE HORSES OF THE COLONIAL PERIOD, HITHERTO UNEXPLORED,
GIVING THEIR HISTORY, SIZE, GAITS AND CHARACTERISTICS
IN EACH OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES.
SHOWING HOW THE TROTTING HORSE IS BRED, TOGETHER WITH A HISTORY
OF THE PUBLICATIONS THROUGH WHICH THE BREED
OF TROTTERS WAS ESTABLISHED.
_WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS._
BY
JOHN H. WALLACE,
_Founder of “Wallace’s American Trotting Register,” “Wallace’s
Monthly,” “Wallace’s Year Book,” etc._
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR.
1897.
Entered according to act of Congress, by
JOHN H. WALLACE,
in the year 1897, at Washington, D. C.
PREFACE.
The study of the Horse, from the first glimmerings of history, sacred and
profane, and tracing him from his original home through his migrations
until all the peoples of the globe had received their initial supply, may
not be a new idea, but it is certainly a new undertaking. Horse Books
without number have been written, mostly in the century just closing,
but in the history of the horse they are all alike—merely reproductions
of what had been printed before. So far as my knowledge goes, therefore,
this volume is the first attempt, in any language, to determine the
original habitat of the horse and to trace him, historically, in his
distribution.
The facts presented touching the introduction of the horse into Egypt,
and two thousand years later into Arabia, as well as the plebeian blood
from which the English race horse has derived his great speed, will be a
shock to the nerves of the romanticists of the old world as well as the
new. Taking the facts of history and well-known experiences together,
my readers can determine for themselves whether the claims for the
superiority of Arabian blood is not pure fiction. For my own part I
cannot recognize any blood in all horsedom as “royal blood” except that
which is found in the veins of the horse that “has gone out and done it,”
either himself or in his progeny.
In our own country there has always remained a blank in horse history
that nobody has attempted to supply. This blank embraced a century of
racing of which we of the present generation have been entirely ignorant.
Believing that a correct knowledge of the horse of the Colonial period,
in his size, gait, qualities and capacities was absolutely essential to
an intelligent comprehension of the phenomena presented on our trotting
and running courses of the present day, I have not hesitated to bestow
on this new feature of the work great labor and research. In this I have
felt a special satisfaction in the fact that while the field is old in
dates, this is the first time it has ever been traversed and considered.
In the chapters which follow, many historical questions are treated at
such length as their relative importance seems to demand, embracing
the different families that have contributed to the building up of the
breed of trotters; and the question of how the trotting horse is bred is
carefully considered in the light of all past experiences and brought
down to the close of 1896. These chapters will not surprise the old
readers of the _Wallace’s Monthly_, for they will here meet with many
thoughts that will not be new to them, but they will find them more
fully elaborated, in more orderly form, and brought down to the latest
experiences.
It is not the purpose of this book to furnish statistical tables covering
the great mass of trotting experiences, nor to consider the mysteries of
the trainer’s art that have been so ably discussed by experienced and
skillful men. But the real and only purpose is to place upon record the
results of years devoted to historical research, at home and abroad; to
dispel the illusions and humbugs that have clustered about the horse
for many centuries; and to consider with some minuteness, which of
necessity cannot be impersonal, the great industrial revolution that
has been wrought in horse-breeding, and all growing out of a little
unpretentious treatise written twenty-five years ago, which contained
nothing more striking than a little bit of science and a little bit of
sense intelligently commingled. The battle between the principles of
this treatise and selfish prejudices and mental sterility, was long and
bitter, but the truth prevailed, and in the production of the Driving
Horse the teachings of that little paper have placed our country first
among all the nations of the earth.
JOHN H. WALLACE.
NEW YORK: 40 WEST 93D STREET.
_September 1, 1897_
CONTENTS.
PAGES
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
General View of the Field Traversed 1-23