We here have a stock of horses that the people of Virginia have bred and

ridden and raced for a hundred years, and we know comparatively nothing

about them. They seem to have been specially adapted to the saddle, but

they could run four miles, or they could run a quarter of a mile, like an

arrow from a bow. They were not a breed, although selecting and crossing

and interbreeding for a hundred years would make them quite homogeneous.

There is a romantic interest attaching to these little horses, for we

have reached the middle of the eighteenth century, and all the successive

idols of this race-loving people are about to be dethroned by their own

act, and their homage transferred to a stranger—a larger and finer animal

and faster over a distance of ground. Whatever of glory and honor, to say

nothing of money, that was to be achieved from this time forward was to

be ascribed to the newly arrived English race horse. But the truth should

not be concealed that this old stock furnished half the foundation, in

a vast majority of cases, for the triumphs of future generations of the

Virginia race horse, and the same may be said of the old English stock

upon which the eastern blood was engrafted. About the middle of the

eighteenth century the line was drawn, and there was thereafter developed

the engrafting of the new upon the old. In 1751-52, Moreton’s imported

Traveller was there, and he was the only English race horse advertised

that year. There may have been two or three others, but they had not made

themselves known to the public, and I very much doubt whether there was

any other. A very few years later there were many others, and some of

them of great celebrity.

Mr. J. F. D. Smith made an extended tour of the colonies, especially

of Virginia, before the Revolutionary war, and he suffered some of the

inconveniences growing out of the rising hostility to the mother country.

In speaking of quarter racing, he says:

“In the southern part of the colony and in North Carolina,

they are much attached to Quarter Racing, which is always a

match between two horses to run one quarter of a mile, straight

out, being merely an exertion of speed; and they have a breed

that perform it with astonishing velocity, beating every other

for that distance with great ease, but they have no bottom.

However, I am confident that there is not a horse in England,

nor perhaps in the whole world, that can excel them in rapid

speed; and these likewise make excellent saddle horses for the

road.”

It will be observed that Mr. Smith speaks of these heavily muscled

horses as a _breed_, which expression, I suppose, is intended to be used

in a restricted sense. In the many generations of horses that would

necessarily succeed each other in a century, in the hands of a people

so devotedly fond of racing, it is merely an exercise of common sense,

among barbarous as well as civilized people all over the world, to “breed

to the winner.” In this way, and without any infusion of outside blood,

there would be improvement in the strength and fleetness of all animals

bred for the quarter path. He remarks further that “these likewise make

excellent saddle horses for the road.” In that day nothing was accepted

as a “saddle horse” that could not take the pacing gait and its various

modifications. This was true of Virginians of that day, and it is still

true of their descendants who have built up new States further west.

In the early days, as already intimated, it was the habit of Virginians

to brand their horses and then turn out all not in daily use to “hustle”

for their own living. As a matter of course these animals would often

stray long distances away, and not a few never were found. In due time,

legislation provided for the recovery of estrays, embracing all kinds

of domestic animals as well as negro slaves. Fortunately this enables

me to reach what may be considered “original data,” in determining the

size and habits of action of the early Virginian horses. As the field

of my examination, I have taken the _Virginia Gazette_, for the years

1751 and 1752, published at Williamsburgh, and in these volumes I find

a great many advertisements of “Strayed or Stolen” animals scattered

through the pages; and in the second especially a great many “Taken Up”

advertisements appear. In a very large proportion of these notices,

perhaps a majority of them, all the description that is given is the

color, sex and brand, with occasionally some natural mark. As a matter

of course these are of no value for the object in view. In some cases

the size is given without the gait, and in others the gait is given

without the size, in a few both size and gait are given. The range of

size is from one of fifteen hands down to one of twelve hands, with more

of thirteen hands than any other size, either above or below. The true

average of the whole number is a little over thirteen hands and one inch,

and none of them are called ponies. As further evidence of the small size

of the colonial Virginia horses we find that in 1686 the legislature of

Virginia passed an act providing for the forfeiture of all stallions

under thirteen and a half hands high found running at large. It provided

that any person might take up such stallion and carry him before a

justice of the peace, and if he measured less than thirteen and a half

hands, the justice was required to certify to the measurement and the

facts, and the horse passed legally to his new owner.

As to the gaits I find just twice as many pacers as trotters.

Double-gaited animals, of which there were a few, I have here classed

with the pacers. That many of these little fellows were very stout and

tough is fully demonstrated by the fact that they could run heats of

four miles with a hundred and forty pounds on their backs. This closes

the first epoch in the history of the Virginia horse. The fleet and

compact little horse of thirteen to fourteen hands had had his day, and

he was now about to be overshadowed by a greater in speed and a greater

in stature. Much of the blood of the little fellow that could run four

miles and pace “at a prodigious rate,” was commingled with the blood of

the English race horse, but whatever its triumphs, the lately arrived

“foreigner” took the credit. A man would have been pronounced “clean

daft” if at that time he had dreamed that one hundred and forty years

later the blood of this little pacer would stand at the head of the great

trotting interest of the world. The tough little fellow has retained his

qualities through all the generations in which he has been neglected,

despised and forgotten, until he was taken up twenty odd years ago, and

now the names and achievements of the great pacers are as familiar to

the whole American people as ever were the name of the greatest running

horses. It is not known how long he continued to be a factor in the

racing affairs of Virginia, but probably not later than about 1760.

From about 1750 to 1770 seems to have been a period of great prosperity

in Virginia and, notwithstanding the general improvidence of the times,

many of the large landholders and planters were getting rich from their

fine crops of tobacco and their negroes. This prosperity manifested

itself strongly in the direction of the popular sport of horse racing

and improving the size, quality, and fleetness of the running horse.

England had then been selecting, importing Eastern blood, and “breeding

to the winner” for a hundred years, with more or less intelligence and

success, while the colonists had rested content with the descendants of

the first importations from the mother country. Doubtless progress had

been made here too, but it was as the progress of a poor man against

another with great wealth and backed by the encouragements of royalty.

The English horse could then run clear away from the Saracenic horse, his

so-called progenitor, and he was very much larger than that “progenitor.”

We can understand how the speed might be increased by its development in

a series of generations and by always breeding to the fastest, but the

increase of size can hardly be accounted for as the result of climatic

causes—but we are getting away from the thought before us. When the

Virginia planter found he had a handsome balance in London, subject

to his draft, he at once ordered his factor to send him over the best

racing stallion he could find. The action of one planter stirred up

half a dozen others who felt they could not afford to be behind in the

matter of improvement, but more especially that they could not afford

to be behind in the finish at the fall and spring race meetings of the

future. These importations went on continuously for about twelve years,

and until they were interrupted by the excited relations and feelings

between the colonies and the mother country and the preparations for the

War of the Revolution, which was then imminent. After the close of the

Revolution a perfect avalanche of race horses was poured upon us, some of

which were good, but a great majority of them were never heard of after

their arrival, on the race course or elsewhere. But up to the close of

the century they had not succeeded in exterminating the pacer—the saddle

horse of a hundred generations.

As a specimen of how absurdly a man can talk and even write on subjects

of which he knows nothing, I cannot refrain from giving the following

from what an Englishman had to say in 1796 about the horses and

horsemanship of Virginia:

“The horses in common use in Virginia are all of a light

description, chiefly adapted for the saddle; some of them are

handsome, but are for the most part spoiled by the false gaits

which they are taught. The Virginians are wretched horsemen,

as indeed are all the Americans I have met with, excepting

some few in the neighborhood of New York. They ride with their

toes just under the horse’s nose, and their stirrup straps left

extremely long, and the saddle being put three or four inches

on the mane. As for the management of the reins, it is what

they have no conception of. A trot is odious to them, and they

express the utmost astonishment at a person who can like that

uneasy gait, as they call it. The favorite gaits which all

their horses are taught are a pace and a _wrack_. In the first

the animal moves his two feet on one side at the same time

and gets on with a sort of a shuffling motion, being unable

to spring from the ground on these two feet, as in a trot. We

should call this an unnatural gait, as none of our horses would

ever move in that manner without a rider; but the Americans

insist upon it that it is otherwise, because many of their

colts pace as soon as born. These kind of horses are called

“natural pacers” and it is a matter of the utmost difficulty to

make them move in any other manner. But it is not one horse in

five hundred that would pace without being taught.”

There can hardly be a doubt that our English friend in his “Travels

Through the States” noted and wrote down just what he thought he saw,

and when he saw anything that he never had seen in England, he was

ready to either deny its existence altogether or to insist that there

was some mistake about it. Poor man, he could not understand how there

could be anything outside of England that could not be found in England.

His vision, mental and physical, seems to have been restricted to the

shores of his own island home, and he was probably a descendant of a

very good man we once heard of. As you sail up the Firth of Clyde you

pass an island of three or four miles in extent, called Cumbrae. At

the head of ecclesiastical affairs in the island was a very pious man,

some generations back, and every Sunday morning he prayed that the Lord

would bless the “kingdom of Cumbrae and the adjacent islands of Great

Britain and Ireland.” The author of “Travels Through the States” was

evidently one of the very numerous descendants of this good man, as

they are scattered all over England, and as I am a strong believer in

the laws of heredity, I can hardly avoid this conclusion. Indeed, some

of the numerous tribe, tracing their genealogy through many generations

back to “The kingdom of Cumbrae,” have found their way across the water,

and at another place I will pay my respects to them. But to return to

our traveler: there can be no doubt about his never having seen a pacer

in England, for the last one had disappeared before his day, unless an

occasional one might have been found in the old province of Galloway, in

the southern part of Scotland. If he had known the history of the horses

of his own country he would have known that from the time of King John

down to that of James I., the pacer was the most popular and fashionable

horse in England, and that the nobility and gentry used no other kind

for the saddle. He was always of “a mean stature,” but he was compact,

hardy and strong, and could carry his burden a long journey in a day with

great ease and comfort to his rider. In the reign of Elizabeth, he was

kept separate from others, and bred as a breed on account of his easy,

gliding motion, which he transmitted to his progeny. At the time of the

plantation of the English colonies in this country the pacers were very

numerous, and as they were just the type of horse suited to wilderness

life, a very large proportion of those selected were pacers. The pacers

our traveler saw in Virginia were the lineal descendants of the original

English stock brought over by the adventurers, and the awkward riding

charged upon the Virginians, with some evident exaggerations, was wisely

and sensibly adapted to the action of the horses they were riding. The

criticism of the long stirrups is wholly unjust, as they are just the

right length for the “military” seat, and nobody in this country when

mounted on a _real saddle horse_ would ever think of taking any other.

The Englishman, when mounted on his “bonesetter,” is compelled to have

his stirrups short so that he can rise and fall with every revolution the

horse makes on the trot to save himself from being shaken to death. This

up and down, up and down, tilt-hammer seat, if it can be called “a seat”

at all, is one of the most ungraceful things, especially for a lady, that

can be conceived of in all the displays of good and bad equestrianism.

The English have been compelled to adopt it because they have no trained

saddle horses, and a lot of brainless imitators about our American cities

have followed them because “it is English, you know.” If the English had

pacers and horses trained to the “saddle gaits,” they never would have

anything else, and the tilt-hammer “seat” would disappear from Rotten Row

and everywhere else.

CHAPTER IX.

COLONIAL HORSE HISTORY—NEW YORK.

Settlement of New Amsterdam—Horses from Curaçoa—Prices of

Dutch and English horses—Van der Donck’s description and size

of horses—Horses to be branded—Stallions under fourteen hands

not to run at large—Esopus horse—Surrender to the English,

1664—First organized racing—Dutch horses capable of improvement

in speed—First advertised Subscription Plate—First restriction,

contestants must “be bred in America”—Great racing and heavy

betting—First importations of English running horses—Half-breds

to the front—True foundation of American pedigrees—Half bushel

of dollars on a side—Resolutions of the Continental Congress

against racing—Withdrawal of Mr. James De Lancey—Pacing and

trotting contests everywhere—Rip Van Dam’s horse and his cost.

For several years after Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the employ of

the Dutch, discovered the harbor of New York and the great river which

took his name, in the year 1609, there is uncertainty and doubt as to

the nature of the settlement. For a time it seems to have been merely a

trading post, occupied only by those in the employment of the company

that owned it, and without many of the elements requisite to make up

a permanent colony. At Fort Orange (Albany) and at Esopus (Kingston),

the conditions were the same as at New Amsterdam, as New York was then

named. The first party of immigrants that seemed to have the elements of

permanent colonization about it arrived in 1625, and consisted of six

families and several single men, making in all forty-five persons, with

furniture, utensils, etc., and one hundred and three head of cattle.

Doubtless some of these “cattle” were horses, and the general instead

of the specific term was used in enumerating them. Very little is known

of the early horse history of the New Netherlands, as the whole region

was then named; there can be no doubt, however, that they increased and

multiplied. Sometime, probably about 1643, a cargo or two of horses were

brought up from Curaçoa and Azuba, in the Dutch West Indies, but the

climatic change was too great for them, and they did not do well, being

specially subject to diseases from which the Dutch horses seemed to have

complete immunity. In 1647, Isaac Allerton, as agent, was authorized to

sell twenty or twenty-five of these horses to Virginia, and whether the

authorities were able thus to get clear of a bad investment does not

appear from the existing records. In a report to the home company, made

in 1650, I find the following prices were given at that time: A young

mare with second foal, one hundred and fifty florins; stallion, four or

five years old, one hundred and thirty florins; milch cow, one hundred

florins. The same report makes a comparison by giving the prices of

New England horses, as follows: A good mare one hundred to one hundred

and twenty florins; stallion, one hundred florins; milch cow, sixty to

seventy florins. Neither horses nor cows were then allowed to be shipped

out of the province without permission of the council.

Adrien Van der Donck wrote a description of New Netherlands which was

published 1656, in which he speaks of the horse stock as follows:

“The horses are of the proper breed for husbandry, having been

brought from Utrecht for that purpose; and this stock has not

diminished in size or quality. There are also horses of the

English breed which are lighter, not so good for agricultural

use, but fit for the saddle. These do not cost as much as the

Netherlands breed and are easily obtained.”

From a large number of facts collected for the years 1777 and 1778 the

horses then averaged about fourteen hands and one inch, and when compared

with earlier data it is evident they had increased in height. In the

gaits of those advertised, fifteen both paced and trotted, nine trotted

only, and seven paced only. As this was in the period of the Revolution,

and right in the center of hostilities, some allowance should be made for

horses from other colonies.

The people of this colony, like those of all the others, branded their

horses and turned them out to seek their own living in the summer season,

and this resulted in many losses, and oftentimes in much bad feeling.

The Dutch were not accustomed, in the “old country,” to building fences

around their crops high enough and strong enough to keep out all the

droves and herds of animals running at large. In the line of improvement

and increase of size in their horses, they provided that all stallions

running at large, of two years and nine months old, must be fourteen

hands high or be castrated. This law was in force in 1734, and no doubt

was effective. Among the many laws for the suppression of vice of

different kinds, I find one prohibiting horse racing on Sunday, and from

this we might infer that it was not forbidden on other days of the week.

In old newspapers, advertisements, etc., we sometimes come across “Esopus

Horses, Esopus Mares,” and, for years, I was not able to tell what this

term meant. The locality of Kingston was originally called Esopus, and in

that neighborhood there were several farmers who bred horses largely, at

an early day in the history of the colony, and the locality became famous

for the character and quality of the horses produced there. They were of

the best and purest Dutch blood, and for what we would call “all-purpose

horses” their fame was very wide in that day. Hence I infer that the term

“Esopus” was used to indicate what was considered the best type of Dutch

horses. There is danger of going astray in the meaning of the term “Dutch

horses,” as in later times it was applied to the great, massive draft

horses of Pennsylvania. They were better “for agricultural purposes,” as

Van der Donck puts it, than the Connecticut horses, because they were

larger and stronger, but they were sprightly and active and some of them

could run very well. They had a fine reputation in the adjoining colonies.

New Amsterdam, and consequently all the plantations in New Netherlands,

surrendered to Colonel Nicolls, commanding the British forces, August

27, 1664. Colonel Nicolls remained as governor of the colony three or

four years and until he was succeeded by Governor Lovelace. Among his

early official acts, Governor Nicolls laid out a race course on Hempstead

Plains, and named it Newmarket, after the famous course in England.

No engineering or grading was necessary, as nature had already made a

perfect course without stick or stone or other obstruction. The first

race was run 1665, and although it was a long distance from the city,

the presence of the governor gave the occasion prestige and there was a

great gathering of the gentry from town, and the farmers of Long Island.

These meetings were kept up annually by the appointment of succeeding

governors, and after a time they were held twice a year, spring and

fall. There are some very important facts about these races that are not

known and probably never will be known, namely, who were the nominators

and what breed of horses were entered in these contests. With these

two essential facts left out the value of the information is greatly

impaired. As it is known, however, that there were but two breeds or

types of horses that could have been engaged in these contests, it

becomes a matter of interest to reach a conclusion as to which were the

victors. Mr. John Austin Stevens has done some very excellent work on

this part of the horse history of New York, but I cannot agree with him

in his characterization of the Dutch horses as being Flemish. They did

not come from Flanders, but from Utrecht. They were not great unwieldy

brutes, such as we would associate with Flanders, but hardy, compact

animals that could make their way in the wilderness. Although larger,

it does not follow that they could not run as fast or even faster than

the New England ponies. All breeds of horses were very much smaller

two hundred years ago than they are now. These races were instituted,

evidently, for the improvement of the breed of horses in the colony, and

the great majority of these horses were the descendants of the original

stock brought from Utrecht. We must, therefore, conclude that they were

not slow, heavy, unwieldy animals with no action, as the language of Mr.

Stevens would seem to imply, but capable of improvement in the direction

of speed. No doubt there were very many New England horses in the colony,

“lighter and better adapted to the saddle,” but neither the interests nor

the pride of the old Dutch settlers would have permitted them to support

racing for a period of more than eighty years, unless the early Utrecht

blood was represented. Besides this, the weights carried, one hundred and

forty pounds, and the distance, generally two-mile heats, were conditions

that were strongly against the New Englanders, even if they were lighter

of foot. With these two breeds in the field, we may accept it as an

inevitable sequence that the superior qualities of the one would very

soon be engrafted on the other, and by this process of breeding, a better

type would be produced than either of the originals. This first step was

only a prelude to the next, and that again to the next, until the common,

plain lesson was thoroughly learned, that if a running horse was wanted

the way to get him was to breed to a running horse that had proved he

was a running horse. The improvement became very wide and general, and

occasionally an animal was produced with such phenomenal speed that he

was barred from stakes and purses. On this foundation, and this alone,

the running turf was built up and continued for about eighty years, with

occasional intervals, when the gamblers made it so nasty that no decent

people would go near it.

The first subscription plate race of which we have any trace is to be

found in the _New York Gazette_, of September 27, 1736, of which the

advertisement is given below. The course indicated is believed to have

been on the Church Farm, west of Broadway, and not far from where the

Astor House now stands. There is no account of what horses won, and all

we know is just what is in the advertisement.

“On Wednesday, the 13th of October next, will be run for, on

the course at New York, a plate of twenty pounds’ value, by any

horse, mare or gelding, carrying ten stone (saddle and bridle

included), the best of three heats, two miles each heat. Horses

intended to run for the plate are to be entered the day before

the race, with Francis Child, on Fresh Water Hill, paying a

half pistole each, or at the post on the day of running, paying

a pistole. And the next day being the 14th, will be run for,

on the same course, by all or any of the horses that started

for the twenty-pound plate (the winning horse excepted) the

entrance money, on the conditions above. Proper judges will be

named to determine any disputes that may arise. All persons on

horseback or in chairs, coming into the field (the subscribers

and winning horse only excepted) are to pay sixpence each to

the owner of the grounds.”

Passing on to 1747 we find a duplication of the foregoing for the plate

race of that year, with some variations. Entries are restricted to

animals that never won a plate before “on this island,” and a horse

named Parrot is not permitted to compete. This race was advertised

to take place on the Church Farm. The next that I will notice is the

advertisement of this same stake for 1751, when the weight was reduced to

eight stone, and in addition to the usual exclusion of previous winners,

we have for the first time a restriction of the entries to animals “_bred

in America_.” At the May meeting at Hempstead Plains, the year following,

1752, the entries are again restricted to animals “bred in America.”

From this, then, we are able to fix the precise period when English Race

Horses were first brought to this colony. At this time there were two or

three other courses on Manhattan Island, besides several noted speeding

grounds on the roads and elsewhere, for the trotters and the pacers, of

which no advertisements appear, and consequently no notice was taken by

the newspaper press.

From about 1760 up to the time when the Revolutionary struggle began

to engross and absorb all thought and all action, racing received a

tremendous impetus, not only in this colony but in others. Ten or twelve

years before this a very few rich men in Maryland, Virginia and South

Carolina commenced importing English running-bred horses with great

success, and Mr. James De Lancey and other rich men of this colony were

only a year or two behind them. This fancy grew and spread until a

great many breeders and planters of the richer class had imported stock

of their own, while their less wealthy neighbors were well supplied

with half-breds. These half-breds were, for a short time, classed by

themselves and purses were offered and run for, restricted to this class.

After experimenting with animals bred in this way it was found that not

a few of them were able to hold their own in any company. Mr. Morris’

mare Strumpet was only half-bred, but she was able to beat many of the

imported animals, as well as the full-breds that started against her.

From this it would appear that breeding for speed for a hundred years had

produced results in this country as well as in England. These experiments

led many owners of old-fashioned stock to try it, and right there is

where thousands and thousands of our best old American pedigrees end.

The decade from 1750 to 1760 witnessed a complete transformation from

the old methods to the new, from the old blood to the new, and more than

all from the old managers to the new. During the next decade, from 1760

to 1770, the new blood came out in great strength, and the saturnalia of

horse racing grew more and more furious. Purses of a hundred dollars, as

in the olden time, sprang up to ten times that sum, and matches were made

for sums that were fabulous in that day. One match, between Mr. Delaney

of Maryland and Mr. De Lancey of New York, specified the consideration on

each side as a half bushel of silver Mexican dollars, and the Marylander

had the satisfaction of carrying home a bushel of silver dollars. The

great struggle, in New York, for supremacy on the turf was between the De

Lancey family and the Morris family. These two families had been bitter

political rivals for years, and when they met on the turf it was for

“blood.” The De Lanceys were Tories and the Morrises were Whigs, and this

intensified the feeling that had so long existed between them. When the

Continental Congress adopted that remarkable resolution, advising the

people to abstain from horse racing, cock fighting, gambling and some

other more slight offenses, on the grounds of “economy,” in view of the

approaching conflict with the mother country, the effect was thrilling

and electrical. Every man who loved his home and his country obeyed it.

True, as I have said, it was drawn in the form of advice and in the

interests of “economy,” but there was but one great evil, one great

prodigality at which it was aimed, and that was the gambling connected

with horse racing. It was well aimed and struck the bull’s eye. It came

in the midst of preparations for the greatest race meetings ever then

projected, but everything was dropped and there it lay through all the

years of the bloody struggle and until peace again smiled upon a land

of free men. Before avowed hostilities commenced, Mr. James De Lancey,

one of the first and largest importers and breeders of his day, sold out

every animal of the horse kind that he possessed and retired to England.

Thus, as the colonial period drew to its close, the brave little colonial

horse that had weathered the storms of a hundred winters and carried his

master in safety and comfort through all that time, is superseded by

another race, and no one has ever attempted to write even so much as his

epitaph.

As the contests of speed considered, up to this point, have all been

at the running gait, I must not close my review of this colony without

giving some attention to the pacers and the trotters. At these gaits

all sources of information are almost hopelessly barren of facts and

incidents. We know that the running horses of the colonial period were

the saddle horses of the country, and we know that the best and most

fashionable saddle horses were pacers. When we connect these two facts

and place them alongside of the pacing and trotting experiences of

Pennsylvania and New Jersey, we have no difficulty in reaching the safe

conclusion that the same conditions would produce the same results as

in those two States. Pacing and trotting contests were just as frequent

and as exciting in this colony as in any other, but they were sustained

chiefly by road-house keepers and butchers, and were never advertised.

Matches were made one hour and decided on the road in the next. In the

“Annals of New York,” compiled and published in 1832, by John F. Watson,

we find the following curious, but very valuable, scrap of horse history:

“Some twenty or thirty years before the Revolution, the steeds

most prized for the saddle were pacers, since so odious deemed.

To this end the breed was propagated with much care. The

Narragansett pacers of Rhode Island were in such repute that

they were sent for, at much trouble and expense, by some few

who were choice in their selections. It may amuse the present

generation to peruse the history of one such horse, spoken of

in the letter of Rip Van Dam of New York, in the year of 1711,

which I have seen. He states the fact of the trouble he had

taken to procure him such a horse. He was shipped from Rhode

Island in a sloop, from which he jumped overboard when under

sail, and swam ashore to his former home. Having been brought

back he arrived in New York, in thirteen days’ passage, much

reduced in flesh and spirit. He cost thirty-two pounds and his

freight fifty shillings. This writer, Rip Van Dam, was a great

personage, he having been president of the Council in 1731, and

on the death of Governor Montgomery that year, he was governor,

ex-officio, of New York. His mural monument is now to be seen

in St. Paul’s Church.”

As New England saddle horses were only worth forty dollars in 1650, and

this horse cost more than four times as much, when horses were more

plentiful, we must conclude that he was a fine specimen of the breed, and

was, probably, bought for stock purposes. The date of this transaction is

a significant fact that should not be forgotten, as 1711 is the same year

in which the first of the two great founders of the English race horse,

Darley Arabian, was brought to England.

CHAPTER X.

COLONIAL HORSE HISTORY—NEW ENGLAND.

First importations to Boston and to Salem—Importations

from Holland brought high prices—They were not pacers and

not over fourteen hands—In 1640 horses were exported to

the West Indies—First American newspaper and first horse

advertisement—Average sizes—The different gaits—CONNECTICUT,

first plantation, 1636—Post horses provided for by law—All

horses branded—Sizes and Gaits—An Englishman’s experience

with pacers—Lindsay’s Arabian—RHODE ISLAND, Founded by Roger

Williams, 1636—No direct importations ever made—Horses largely

exported to other colonies 1690—Possibly some to Canada—Pacing

races a common amusement—Prohibited 1749—Size of the

Narragansetts compared with the Virginians.

In 1629 the London founders of the plantation of Massachusetts Bay sent

out six vessels laden with emigrants, horses, cattle, goats, etc. These

vessels brought some twenty-five head of mares and stallions, that

were valued at six pounds each and all owned by the company in London,

except three mares from Leicester, that were owned by private parties.

At that time there seems to have been some rivalry between Boston and

Salem as a shipping point, but this fleet came to Boston harbor. This

same year (1629) Salem seems to have had six or seven mares and one

stallion, besides forty cows, and forty goats. From this it might be

safely inferred that a part of this fleet put into Salem harbor, or that

there may have been another and somewhat earlier shipment of which we

have no details. Salem was really founded in 1626, and the settlement

at Charlestown, Boston, dates from the same year. The next year about

sixty head were shipped to the plantation, but many were lost during the

voyage, of both horses and cattle. Several other shipments followed,

but nothing worthy of special note, till 1635, when two Dutch ships

arrived at Salem with twenty-seven mares, valued at thirty-four pounds

each, and three stallions. Some writers have spoken of these mares as

“Flanders mares,” but I have not been able to find any evidence or even

indication that this might have been the fact. The records show they

were Dutch ships, and that on a given day they sailed out of the Texel,

a Dutch port, far away from Flanders. I think, therefore, we are safe in

concluding they were “Dutch mares,” and they should be so designated.

Just about this period they were bringing Dutch horses from Utrecht, in

Holland, to the Dutch colony at New Amsterdam, and it was well known

in Holland as well as in New England that the Dutch horses brought

much better prices in New England than the English importations. It is

probable, further, that these Dutch traders were looking out for a choice

of markets, as between New England and New Netherlands. These mares

were valued at thirty-five pounds each, the record says, but we are not

informed as to the price that was really paid for them. There is a very

wide discrepancy between the figure at which these mares were “valued”

and the cost of the mares that were brought from England. The English

company charged the colony six pounds each for the horses sent from

there, and ten pounds freight.

I have labored assiduously to get at such data as would afford a safe

basis upon which to determine the size and other qualities of these

Dutch horses. They were larger than the English horses of that period

and they were more muscular, with greater weight of bone. They were,

doubtless, better adapted to the various offices of the “general purpose”

horse than their English contemporaries, in every respect, except the

saddle. There is no distinctive evidence that they were pacers or could

go any of the saddle gaits, in their own right. It is probably safe to

conclude that the original importations would not average more than

fourteen and a half hands high, and very likely the exact truth, if

it could be reached, would place them below that figure rather than

above it. The process of reducing the size commenced as soon as they

arrived: for the English horses had saddle qualities which the Dutch

did not possess, and everybody wanted a saddle horse. Still the Dutch

blood was highly prized, and a hundred and fifty years afterward it

was no uncommon thing, especially in the valley of the Connecticut,

to meet with the advertisements of stallions seeking patronage on the

strength of “Dutch blood.” This, for a time, was a puzzle to me, but

as we consider the horse interests of the region of the Hudson and the

Mohawk Valley extending eastward and that of eastern Massachusetts

extending westward along with the current of emigration, it is not

difficult to understand how the blood of the Dutch horse should have

become so generally diffused. On the one hand we had the much-desired

saddle qualities, and on the other we had the much-desired increase of

size without deterioration in appearance. Thus owners were accommodated

and the horse stock of the country was improved by the interbreeding

of the two nationalities. It is not necessary to further particularize

different importations. It is sufficient to say that they were very

numerous, and the multiplying of the stock was carried forward with vigor

and success. Five years later—1640—the colonists not only had all the

horses they needed, but they shipped a cargo of eighty head to Barbadoes.

From the colony of Massachusetts Bay all the plantations of New England

secured their foundation stock of horses, hence they are here considered

collectively.

The people of the Plymouth plantation were very slow in providing

themselves with horses, and it was not till after 1632 that they had any.

It is hard to conceive of a colony like that of Massachusetts Bay living

and flourishing for a period of, say, eighty years without a newspaper,

and yet such is the fact. The Boston _News-Letter_, the first newspaper,

so called, in this country, was established May 29, 1704, and it lived

many years. The early colonial newspapers, from one end of the land to

the other, were anything and everything but newspapers, as we understand

the meaning of the title in our day. If a boy fell off a building in

London and broke his leg, six weeks before, it was liable to appear as an

item of “news” in the local American newspaper, but if the same accident

happened the week before, in a neighboring town, it was never mentioned.

The name “newspaper” attached to such publications was a fraud.

The following is a copy of the first horse advertisement ever published

in this country, and for that reason it is worthy of preservation. It was

taken from the Boston _News-Letter_ of November 19, 1705:

“Strayed from Mr. John Wilson of Braintree, at Mr. Havens’

in Kingston, in Narragansett, about a fortnight ago, a

sorrel mare, low stature, four white feet, a white face,

shod all round, her near ear tore, has a long white tail and

mane. Whoever will give any intelligence of her ... will be

sufficiently rewarded.”

As this was in the period when the Narragansett pacers had reached their

greatest fame, we might argue that this mare had been sent down to

Kingston from Braintree, Massachusetts, to be wintered and to be bred

in the spring to some famous horse in Kingston, the very center of the

horse-breeding interests of that day.

Under the date of June 17, 1706, I find a bay horse advertised as

“strayed or stolen: fourteen hands high, hardly possible to make him

gallop,” and October 28, 1706, a black gelding “fourteen hands high,

paces, trots, and gallops.” Then in the years 1731 and 1732 I find a

“black mare fourteen and three-quarter hands, trots and paces;” a “black

horse twelve hands,” no gait given; “black gelding, fourteen hands,

races, trots, and gallops;” “bay horse large, good pacer;” “roan mare,

fourteen hands, paces and trots.” But the field which I specially gleaned

was for the years 1756-59, where I found the average height was fourteen

hands one inch, the data including eight pacers and two trotters. This,

I think, may be taken as fairly representative of the size and habit

of action of Massachusetts horses in the first half of the eighteenth

century.

In 1636 the first plantation was made in Connecticut at Hartford by the

Rev. Thomas Hooker and over a hundred of his congregation with him. They

left nothing behind, but brought all their domestic animals to their new

home. I have not been able to discover just how many horses they brought

with them, but in a few decades they had a great abundance and to spare.

In 1653 the General Court at New Haven made provision for keeping public

saddle horses for hire and fixed the rate of charges for their use. It

also prohibited the sale of horses outside of the colony. In 1658 all

horses, young and old, had to be branded by an officer appointed for

that purpose, and it required several years of legislation before the

system of branding, selling and recording could be so perfected as to

prevent dishonesty and frauds. In 1674 an act was passed providing and

enjoining that all colts entire and stallions running at large, under

thirteen hands high, should be gelded. This law also required a good

deal of amending before it could be made to work smoothly. The size of

the Connecticut horses about the time of the Revolution was an average

of thirteen hands three inches, thus ranging below the other New England

colonies. In 1778 horse racing was prohibited under the penalty of

forfeiture of the horse and a fine of forty shillings. In 1776 a careful

compilation of the gaits of the horses of that period, embracing nineteen

individuals, taken as they came, showed that fifteen were pacers, or

pacers and trotters, and four were trotters only. As an evidence of

the quality of the Connecticut pacers, take the following passage from

a little volume published 1769, in England, entitled “A Voyage to North

America,” by G. Taylor, Sheffield, England, 1768-69:

“After dinner at New London, Conn., Mr. Williams and I took

post horses, with a guide to New Haven. Their horses are, in

general of less size than ours, but extremely stout and hardy.

A man will ride the same horse a hundred miles a day, for

several days together, in a journey of five or eight hundred

miles, perhaps, and the horse is never cleaned. They naturally

pace, though in no graceful or easy manner, but with such

swiftness and for so long a continuance as must seem incredible

to those who have not proved it by experience.”

This is a very different view of the pacer from that expressed by another

Englishman who visited Virginia in 1796. He had never seen a pacer before

and he was wholly unwilling to believe his host when he assured him it

was a natural gait and that many colts paced from the day they were

foaled. This, to the mind of the Englishman could not be true, he says,

“for none of our horses ever move in that manner.” (See Virginia, pp.

117-118).

The most noted horse ever owned in Connecticut, at least in colonial

days, was the horse named and known in later times as Lindsay’s Arabian.

When I was younger I accepted the marvelous story of the origin and early

history of this horse, of which a brief account is given in the chapter

on the “American Race Horse,” to which reference is here made. This

acceptance on my part of the romantic story was largely superinduced by

a statement made by a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States,

that he had examined the animal when he was old and found on three of

his legs undoubted physical evidence that they had at one time been

broken. This appeared in a reputable publication, but when compared with

some other facts in the history of the horse that are known, there can

hardly be a doubt that the examination by the justice was a fiction.

When I began to realize that the marvelous story was a mere fiction my

“wrath waxed hot” against the people of “the land of steady habits,” to

say nothing of “wooden nutmegs,” until Mr. O. W. Cook made it very plain

that the people of Connecticut never had heard of the remarkable story.

(See _Wallace’s Monthly_, Vol. VI., p. 251). Thus it became evident

that the whole story had been fabricated in Maryland and was a kind of

“green goods” method for catching the unwary. These are my apologies

to the general public and especially to the Connecticut public for

supposing them guilty of any such fraud. The naked truth of the matter

is, that while this horse may have been imported from England, his public

advertisements clearly indicate that his owners knew nothing of his blood

or early history.

The colony of Rhode Island was planted by Roger Williams and his

followers in 1636, and the first patent giving it a legal existence

was obtained 1647. It was an offshoot from Massachusetts and a protest

against the intolerance of that colony in religious affairs. For several

years I made renewed and persistent efforts to discover whether in

the early colonial period Rhode Island had ever imported any horses

from foreign countries, and after exhausting every source of recorded

information, I have not been able to find a single intimation of such

importation. It is evident, therefore, that the famous Narragansett

pacer is simply the result of carefully selecting and breeding from

the best and the fastest of the descendants of the English pacers, to

be found everywhere in the colony of Massachusetts. The superiority of

the Narragansett pacer over all others of his kind seemed to suggest

the probability that he must have possessed blood that was superior to

all others, and to supply this “want,” a Rhode Islander advanced the

claim that his grandfather had imported the original stock from Spain.

Unfortunately for this “claim” there were two difficulties in the way

of accepting it. First, there were no pacers in Spain, and second, the

Narragansett pacers were famous for their speed and value before the

grandfather was born, or at least before he was out of his swaddling

clothes.

The horse interests of Rhode Island seem to have been active and

successful from the very founding of the colony, and the fame of her

pacers extended to all the American colonies at a very early day. When

the authorities made their report to the Board of Trade at London, in

1690, showing what they had produced and where and how they had disposed

of their surplus, they place horses at the head of their products and

state that they are shipped to all the English colonies on the American

coast. This statement is sustained by corresponding facts that are known

in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Trading with the French colonies

in Canada was rigorously prohibited, but it is quite probable that many a

good pacing horse found his way to the St. Lawrence in exchange for pelts

and furs. But, as the Narragansett and the pacer generally will be fully

considered in another part of this volume, the reader is referred to the

chapters wholly devoted to those topics.

That racing was a common amusement of the people of Rhode Island is fully

established by the very best of contemporaneous evidence, and by the

silver plate prizes won, that are said to be still in existence in some

of the old families. Attempts have been made to laugh this statement out

of court, on the grounds that Rhode Island was a Puritan colony, and

such a thing as a horse race would not be tolerated for a single day.

This attempt shows a great deal more smartness than knowledge, for Rhode

Island was not a Puritan colony, as that term is generally understood,

but had for its very foundation opposition to the spirit of intolerance

that prevailed in all the other New England colonies. But, what is still

more conclusive, the legislature of the colony in 1749 enacted a law

prohibiting all racing, under a penalty of forfeiture of the horse and

a fine of one hundred dollars. As in other colonies not in New England

racing and betting had become so common that the moral sense of the

people rose up and abolished it. If there had been no racing there would

have been no law to wipe it out.

When the Rev. Dr. McSparran, of Rhode Island, made a trip in Virginia

and rode the Virginia pacers some hundreds of miles, early in the last

century, he seems to have observed them closely and spoke very highly of

them, but he said they were not so large and strong as the Narragansetts,

nor so easy and gliding in their action. It might be suggested that this

opinion was the natural result of esteeming one’s own as better than

those of a neighbor, but he was certainly right in the matter of size. In

1768 the Rhode Island horses averaged fourteen hands one inch, while the

Virginia horses averaged (1750-52) thirteen hands one and three-quarter

inches, making a difference of three and one-quarter inches in height.

In the matter of gait they were not all natural pacers, for out of

thirty-five there were eight that did not pace, and some of the others

both paced and trotted. From this it may be inferred that breeders, in

order to increase the size, had incorporated more or less of the blood of

the early Dutch importations.

CHAPTER XI.

COLONIAL HORSE HISTORY—PENNSYLVANIA, NEW JERSEY, MARYLAND, CAROLINA.

Penn’s arrival in 1682—Horse racing prohibited—Franklin’s

newspaper—Conestoga horses—Sizes and gaits—Swedish

origin—Acrelius’ statement. NEW JERSEY—Branding—Increase of

size—Racing, Pacing, and Trotting restricted—MARYLAND—Racing

and pacing restricted 1747—Stallions of under size to be shot.

NORTH CAROLINA—First settlers refugees—SOUTH CAROLINA—Size

and gait in 1744—Challenges—No running blood in the colony

1744—General view.

When William Penn arrived on this side of the water (1682) and took

possession of his princely gift from Charles II., he found the eastern

border of his new province already occupied, though sparsely, by an

industrious and enterprising people. The old Swedish colonists as well as

a sprinkling of Englishmen and other nationalities had been there for a

good many years, and were beginning to get the necessaries as well as the

comforts of life about them. For their numbers, they had a fair supply of

horses, cattle, sheep, and swine; and the growing of cereals and fruits

of all kinds showed encouraging progress, with the promise of plenty.

The new proprietor was gladly welcomed and his rule proved kindly and

beneficent. In a letter to Lord Ormonde, after his arrival, Mr. Penn, in

describing the condition of things in his new colony, says: “The horses

are not very handsome, but good.” The public affairs of Penn’s grant,

before his arrival, had been administered in the name of the Duke of

York, from about the time New Amsterdam had surrendered to the English,

and hence we find sundry regulations with regard to the horse in force

before that event.

The first of these, having the efficacy of law, was in the year 1676,

requiring all horses to be branded, and officers appointed to do the

branding and keep a record of the fact. Besides the individual brands,

each town had its own brand that had to be applied, and by this double

marking it was supposed that strays could be identified with certainty.

Another provision was that no mares should be exported to Virginia or

Barbadoes or other foreign plantations. Again, every owner was supposed

to keep a certain number of horses at home, for daily use, and he was

allowed to keep twice that number running at large. In 1682 no stone

horse under thirteen and one-half hands high was allowed to run at

large. This was afterward changed to thirteen hands. In 1724 this law

was revised and re-enacted so that colts “of comely proportions” and not

more than one year and a half old, if thirteen hands high, might run at

large; but if older than eighteen months they must be fourteen hands high

or suffer the penalty, which was castration. In 1750 horse racing of all

kinds was prohibited, under a severe penalty.

In that grand old repository of ancient, curious, and valuable things

relating to colonial affairs, the New York Historical Society, to which

I am greatly indebted, I found a file of the _Pennsylvania Gazette_,

commencing with the year 1729, published by “B. Franklin, printer.”

In that day the term “editor” or “reporter” was not known in the

vocabulary of any well-regulated newspaper office, and for anything of

a local character you had to look in the advertising columns. To these

I resorted, as usual, and they presented results that were a great

surprise to me. Pennsylvania has long been famous for the production

of great massive draft horses, and before the days of railroads just

suited, with six or eight of them in a team, for the transportation of

freights from the seaboard to the Ohio River. This was a great business

at the beginning of this century and for forty or fifty years afterward.

The fame of those great teams, the great wagons and the great loads

they hauled over the mountains, spread far and wide, and as a special

designation that went with them they were called Conestoga horses, and

the wagons were called Conestoga wagons, named after a creek in Lancaster

County, Pennsylvania, where many large horses were bred. There was no

particular line of blood to be followed, for a large horse bred west

of the mountains was just as certainly a Conestoga as though he had

been bred in Lancaster County. The Conestoga was simply the horse that

was best suited for a big team with an enormous load, and he varied in

size from sixteen and one-half to eighteen hands in height and from one

thousand six hundred to one thousand nine hundred pounds in weight. These

measurements he reached by breeding for the one purpose of strength

and weight. It is safe to conclude that in the latter part of the last

century breeding animals of large size were brought over the water, for

we can hardly conceive of their being descended from the little pacers

preceding them only fifty or sixty years.

The Pennsylvania horses of the first half of the last century were

remarkably uniform in size, and from a large number of cases in which

the size is given I find the exact average was thirteen hands one and

one-quarter inches. Of the twenty-eight animals in which the habit of

action is given, twenty-four were pacers, three both paced and trotted,

and just one is given as a natural trotter. Here we have two very

striking facts—the low stature and the uniformity of the pacing gait.

These horses average a quarter of an inch below the Virginians, the next

lowest, and a higher ratio of pacers than in any other colony. There must

have been some reason or reasons for this, and I will suggest two which

strike me as probably effective in producing these results. The earliest

settlers in Southeastern Pennsylvania were the Swedes. They brought their

horses with them from the Old World, and they were undoubtedly pacers,

but I have no means of determining anything about their size. This may be

an important factor in determining the uniformity of the gait, as well as

the diminutive size. The other consideration that I will present is the

fact that the pacer was more fashionable in and about Philadelphia, then

the leading city of the continent, than in any other section or portion

of the colonies. It is a fact that seems to be fully established, that

early in the last century the breeding of pacing horses was carried on in

the region of Philadelphia, with much spirit and intelligence, and that

pacing stallions for public service were carefully selected for their

shapeliness and speed. It is also a fact that all horses that could not

pace were, in the public estimation, classed as basely bred.

The Swedes and Finns planted a colony on the west bank of the Delaware in

1638, and as they were an industrious and thrifty people they prospered

and extended their plantation up the river as far as Philadelphia. This

territory was then claimed by the Dutch of New Netherlands, and they

overcame the Swedes in 1655, and ten years later they in turn had to

surrender to the English. Of the early Swedes, the Rev. Acrelius wrote

and published, in the Swedish language, a very valuable account of

his people. In speaking of their horses he says: “The horses are real

ponies and are seldom over sixteen hands high [evidently a misprint and

should read “thirteen” instead of “sixteen”]. He who has a good riding

horse never employs him for draft; which is also the less necessary, as

journeys are for the most part made on horseback. It must be the result

of this, more than of any particular breed in the horses, that the

country excels in fast horses, so that horse races are often made for

very high stakes.” Such horses often sold for sixty dollars in our modern

money. The question of the pacers of Philadelphia will be considered more

at length in the chapters devoted to the history of the pacer.

NEW JERSEY is not known to have made any direct importations of horses

from the old country. Lying between New York on the east and Pennsylvania

on the west, she had abundant opportunity to get her supply of horses

from her neighbors on either side, to say nothing of the overflow from

Virginia about 1669. Like all the other colonies, as early as 1668 her

horses were ordered to be branded and then suffered to roam at large and

find their own living. Not much attention seems to have been given to the

idea of improvement in the size and quality of the stock till 1731, when

it was provided by law that all colts of eighteen months old, running at

large and under fourteen hands high, should be gelded. I have not made

any attempt to get at the exact average size of the Jersey horses, nor to

ascertain the ratio of pacers among them, for we know the environments

and the sources of supply, and in knowing these we know just what the

Jersey horses were—a large majority of them were pacers and they were not

over fourteen hands high.

The statutes of this colony, enacted 1748, furnished the first real

evidence of record, with one exception, going to show that pacing and

trotting races, as well as running races, were the common amusement of

the people in the first half of the last century. They were so common,

indeed, that the legislative authorities declared them a nuisance

and restricted them to certain days in the year. That this was not a

“moral spasm,” as some might call it, that had seized the legislative

authorities of that particular year, is evident from the fact that,

afterward and from time to time, this statute was amended, and always

in the direction of greater restrictions and greater severity. This is

sufficient evidence that the moral sense of the community sustained the

lawmakers in pronouncing it a nuisance, to be abated. It is not probable

that pacing and trotting races were any more common or more demoralizing

in New Jersey than in some of the other colonies, but they seem to have

been content with fulminating against “horse racing” without specifying

the different gaits at which the horses might go in the race. Until this

old colonial statute was discovered, it was not possible to prove by

contemporaneous evidence that there had been any pacing or trotting races

before the first decade of the present century. This, however, adds to

their antiquity more than a hundred years.

MARYLAND was really the first in point of time to legislate for the

suppression of pacing, as well as running races, but the old statute,

enacted in 1747, was not discovered till very recently. This proves that

pacing races were very common in Maryland one hundred and sixty years

ago, but it says nothing about trotting races. It will be observed that

in the New Jersey statute the different kinds of racing are placed in

this order: “Racing, pacing and trotting,” and I take this to mean the

order of their prominence. Applying this method to Maryland, it may be

inferred that trotting races were infrequent and practically unknown,

and hence not enumerated as offensive. Taking these two cases together,

I think we are justified in concluding that the pacer antedated and

preceded the trotter in all turf sports. No doubt he was faster then

than the trotter, and he has maintained his superiority, in that respect

at least, to this day. Maryland was a great racing colony and it was

afterward a great racing State. This statute did not sweep over the

whole colony, but applied only to the race course at Newmarket, and Anne

Arundel and Talbot counties. As I understand the matter, this statute was

enacted specially at the request of the Society of Friends, and for the

protection of their yearly meetings.

With Pennsylvania on the one side and Virginia on the other, it is not

necessary to spend any time on the sizes and gaits of the horses of

Maryland, for they were simply duplicates of those in the two colonies

with which they were in constant intercourse and trade. In the matter

of undersized stallions running at large Maryland was more in earnest

and more savage than any of the other colonies. For, by an act of

Legislature, passed 1715, it was provided that any person finding an

entire colt eighteen months old, or an unbroken stoned horse, running at

large, no difference what his size, might shoot him upon the spot.

NORTH CAROLINA was first permanently settled by a colony from Virginia,

led by Roger Green, July, 1653. For some years previous to this it had

been the refuge of Quakers and others fleeing from the persecutions and

proscriptions that prevailed in Virginia at that time, against all who

did not conform to the ritual of the English church. These refugees and

colonists took their horses and all they had with them, and as this was

but a few years before there was an overproduction of horses in Virginia,

and great droves were running wild without an owner, we may conclude they

cost but little and that they spread rapidly in the new colony. As we

thus know whence they came, we necessarily know what they were in size

and gait, and we need not trace them any further.

SOUTH CAROLINA received her colonial charter in 1663, and the

earliest newspaper that I have found was for the year 1744, from the

advertisements in which I have extracted the following data as to size

and gait. In the first four and the last four months of the _South

Carolina Gazette_ for 1744 I find thirty horses advertised as strayed

or stolen, in which the size is given, and they average within a small

fraction of an inch of thirteen and one-half hands, and of this number

three are given as fifteen hands, which was considered, in that day, a

large horse. Out of this number the gait is given in only twelve cases,

ten of which were pacers, one paced and trotted, and one trotted only.

The foundation horse stock of South Carolina was obtained chiefly, if not

wholly, from Virginia, and the practice of branding and turning out, to

roam at large, prevailed everywhere.

In the issues of the _Gazette_ for this year (1744) I find but one

advertisement of a stallion for public service, and he is called the

“famous racing horse named Roger,” and is advertised as a great, race

horse, but there is no attempt to give a pedigree or to claim that he

possessed any blood that was not the inheritance of all others. Another

advertisement is a lengthy challenge from Joseph Butler to run his

gelding Chestnut against any horse, mare or gelding for five hundred or

one thousand pounds “inch and weight,” the lowest horse carrying thirteen

stone. No mention or reference is made to his blood, and from these two

facts we may reasonably infer that at that time there were no strains of

blood, known to the Carolinians, specially bred to run. The distance to

be run is not definitely mentioned, but it was on a road from one point

to another, and I suppose it was about two and a half, or possibly three

miles. This was three years before the first English race horse was

imported into Virginia. It has been represented that an old gentleman,

whose name is forgotten, imported into South Carolina a number of English

race horses at a period long anterior to this, but that claim has never

been in a shape that placed it above very grave suspicion and doubt; and

the claim accompanying it, in the way of apology, that the old man would

never allow any of his horses to race, did not improve its credibility.

From the advertisements just referred to, it seems evident that there was

no distinctively English running blood in the colony till after this date.

This review of the horses of the colonial period embraces all that I

have been able to glean of the character, qualifications, size and

habit of action of the earliest importations and their descendants.

Their diminutive size will be a surprise to my readers as it has been

to me, and the overwhelming ratio of pacers to trotters will be a still

greater surprise. The importance of increasing the size by judicious

selections of the largest seems to have been ever present to the minds

of the colonists, but not much could be accomplished in that direction,

under the system prevalent everywhere of roaming at large. The little

pacers were great saddle horses, and down to the days of good roads and

wheeled vehicles they were deemed indispensable. That there were race

horses among them at the running, pacing and trotting gaits there is

indisputable evidence, covering about a hundred years of the colonial

period, but there is no record of the rate of speed. The pacer was the

favorite and fashionable horse of that period, and after something has

been said about the Canadian horse we will take up his history and treat

it with that fullness its importance demands.

CHAPTER XII.

EARLY HORSE HISTORY—CANADA.

Settlement and capture of Port Royal—Early plantations—First

French horses brought over 1665—Possibly illicit trading—Sire

of “Old Tippoo”—His history—“Scape Goat” and his

descendants—Horses of the Maritime Provinces.

Before taking up the two provinces of the Dominion—Quebec and Ontario—to

which reference is made in this volume as “Canada,” there is an incident

in the history of Nova Scotia, full of sadness, that I cannot pass over

without mention. The French made a settlement here in 1602, and named the

country New France. The settlement to which I refer was at Port Royal,

afterward named Annapolis by the English. This seems to have been a

thrifty and flourishing little plantation, far removed from all outside

associations, except the savages of the forests, with whom they lived in

peace. The first horses brought to North America were owned and bred by

the people of Port Royal. In November, 1613, Captain Argall, of Virginia,

organized a plundering expedition, and having learned of the defenseless

condition of Port Royal from Captain John Smith, he sailed up there with

two or three ships, captured the place and carried away horses, cattle,

sheep, wheat, farming utensils, and indeed everything their ships would

carry, and then sailed away to Virginia. This raid was without authority

or orders, but it was winked at by the officials, and forthwith a second

raid was made by Argall, and all that had been left in the first was

carried away in the second, as well as some of the inhabitants.

The pacer of Canada, generally believed to be of French origin, has

long been an object of diligent investigation, without reaching any

satisfactory results. Again and again I have gone over the first

half-century of the history of the French plantations on the St.

Lawrence; examining everything in the English language that held out any

hope of throwing light upon the question, but nothing was revealed. The

trouble was that my search stopped a little short of the date when the

first horses arrived. The management of the affairs of the plantations

on the St. Lawrence being in a company located in France, there was a

lack of vigor, not much growth, and still less profits to the projectors

of the colony. The energies of the people seemed to be directed almost

wholly to collecting and trading in peltry instead of building up a

commonwealth from the productions of the soil. For half a century these

primitive people lived without horses. Their farms, if they could be

called farms, all had a frontage on the water, running back in narrow

strips to the highlands. They did their plowing with cattle and their

canoes supplied the place of the saddle horse, the family carriage and

the lumber wagon to carry the scanty surplus of their little farms to

market. At last the company in France, holding direction and control, got

out of the way, and the king of France assumed direct authority over the

affairs of the plantation. On June 30, 1665, the Marquis de Tracy arrived

at Quebec, as viceroy, with a numerous suite of retainers and a regiment

of French soldiers. Two months later a large fleet arrived bringing

many colonists, embracing artisans, farmers, peasants, etc., with their

families, and a good number of horses, the first that had ever been seen

on the St. Lawrence. There is a tradition that a horse had been sent over

to the governor in 1642, but it is probable he was lost on the voyage, as

the older people of the colony had no recollection or knowledge of any

such animal. These colonists came from the ancient province of Picardy,

not now to be found on the modern maps of France, but it lay on the

English Channel in the extreme northwest of France. As it is expressly

stated that these colonists came from Picardy, it is fair to conclude

that the horses came from that portion of the kingdom also. At this

period in history there had been no wars between France and England for

many years, and commercial as well as social intercourse had long been

cultivated between the people on both sides of the channel. We know but

little of the early horse history of France, but in our own time we know

that France has been largely benefited by the diffusion of the English

blood among her horse stock, so we may conclude that if a man in Kent had

a horse that a man in Picardy wanted, he very soon got him in the way of

legitimate trade. I think, therefore, it is safe to conclude that the

horse stock of Northwestern France and the horse stock of England were

very much the same in appearance, action and blood. On this basis of

reasoning, which involves no improbabilities, we may conclude that the

same proportion of the horses from Picardy were natural pacers.

There is another theory, giving the Canadian pacer an Anglo-American

origin, that commends itself to the unbiased judgment with even greater

force than the one just suggested. Various writers have talked about

the “French characteristics” of the Canadian pacer, and all that, when

probably not one of them ever saw a horse that he _knew_ to be French.

The early pacers—the pacing-bred pacers—all have more or less strongly

marked resemblances, especially in conformation, and it makes no

difference whether they come from Canada or whether their habitat has

been south of Mason and Dixon’s line for two hundred and fifty years.

When we look at a pacer, therefore, we may as well be honest and say we

don’t know whether he resembles the horses that reached the St. Lawrence

in 1665, or those that reached Massachusetts Bay in 1629. The theory

that the French Canadians got the foundation of their pacing stock from

the New England colonies rests upon two well-known facts. First, the

colonies had a great abundance of such horses for sale; and second, they

were within reach of and purchasable by the Canadians. To these two facts

rendering the theory possible, we have others which render it probable.

The jealous restrictions sought to be imposed on both the English and

French colonists by the home governments of both people strongly indicate

that there was no small amount of illicit trading, and this trading,

in the very nature of things, must have been between the English and

French. Toward the close of the seventeenth century the English colonies,

especially Rhode Island, had far more horses than they needed for home

use, and they did a thriving business in exporting them to different

parts. These were just the kind of horses the Canadians needed for their

wild life in the wilderness; they were cheaper than they could be brought

from France; the water way of Lake Champlain was convenient; pelts and

furs were a desirable commodity of exchange, and there was no cordon of

customs officers to keep the willing traders apart. Of these theories we

consider the second the more probable of the two, and if we accept it

we reach the conclusion that the so-called “French” Canadian pacer is

merely a descendant of the old English pacer brought over by the early

New England colonists. Objection has been presented to this theory, on

the grounds that the powerful confederation of the Six Nations Indians

interposed an insurmountable barrier to all trade, whether legitimate or

illicit, between the Canadians and the colonists of New England. This

objection is certainly conclusive as applied to the different periods

of hostilities, but the hostilities were not continuous. During both

the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries there were periods of

years at a stretch when there were no hostilities, and when there was

nothing to prevent the Canadian and the Yankee from coming together and

exchanging what they each had that the other wanted. The border abounds

in traditions of the incidents connected with this illicit trading, but

we need not go to the border in the wilderness to learn that the desire

to “beat the customs” is almost universal. We can see it manifested every

day at the docks in New York, when a steamer arrives from abroad. The

fine lady, with her gloves and lots of other lingerie that she has been

contriving all the way across how best to keep from the sight of the

officer, is no better and no worse than the “Canuck,” who in a retired

place at midnight trades his peltry to the Yankee for his horse. If the

Canadian pacer did not have his origin in New England it was not because

he could not be carried across the border.

When we enter upon the consideration of the actual performers descended

from the original Canadian stock, we find both pacers and trotters of

speed and merit, but in attempting to trace them to their particular

ancestors we find ourselves in a labyrinth from which there seems to be

no deliverance. In the midst of this darkness I am glad to be able to

say there is a ray of light that illumines much that has been obscure.

The greatest progenitor of trotters and pacers that Canada has produced,

“Old Tippoo,” has been fully identified in his true origin, and he has

been well named “The Messenger of Canada.” He seemed to be known all

over Canada as the greatest of their trotting and pacing sires, and many

attempts were made through several years to give his pedigree, but in all

these attempts there were elements of weakness and in many of them very

bald absurdities.

When the roan gelding Tacony made his record of 2:27, away back in 1853,

the performance was looked upon as something that would not be surpassed

in a generation at least. Then when Toronto Chief made his saddle record

of 2:24½, ten or twelve years later, and it was found that he and Tacony

were both descended from a Canadian horse called Tippoo, the inquiry

became quite active as to what Tippoo was, and all kinds of imaginable

stories were told about him. In the search for the history and breeding

of the horse Tippoo, extending through more than twenty years, many

curious and some impossible things were developed, and as these old

“fads” may come as new discoveries in future generations, I will mention

two or three of them here. The first of these untruthful statements to

assume tangible form was to the effect that Tippoo was imported from

England, and that he was got there by Nesthall’s Messenger. I never

could tell how or where this story originated, but it first appeared in

the pedigree given to Toronto Chief when he went into the stud on Long

Island. This was settled by the facts, expressed in very few words, that

the horse was not imported, but bred in Canada, and that there was no

such horse in England as “Nesthall’s Messenger.”

The next representation came from an old horseman, Mr. V. Sheldon, of

Canton, New York, a very intelligent and careful correspondent, who

had given much labor to the question. He had learned from different

sources, that were satisfactory to his mind, that a Mr. Howard, a

traveling preacher, had ridden a mare from Lowville, New York, over into

Canada; that this mare was in foal “by a very noted horse that stood

at Lowville;” that when the mare became too heavy for his use under

the saddle he sold her to Isaac Morden, and that the foal she dropped

was the famous Tippoo. The name of the “very famous horse that stood

at Lowville” was not remembered, but as Ogden’s Messenger was there

at that time—1816-17—the conclusion followed that he was the horse.

This representation was far from complete, but as there was nothing

unreasonable about it, and nothing known to be untrue, I accepted it for

a time, awaiting further light.

The third representation came from Mr. Lewis T. Leavens, of Bloomfield,

Ontario, who was born 1792, and was, therefore, old enough to have had

some personal knowledge of the horse. But whether his knowledge was

personal or only traditional cannot now be made to appear. He says that

Tippoo was got by a horse called Escape, and I will ask the reader to

note this name “Escape” as we progress. He says that “when Escape was on

the ocean, the vessel encountered a severe gale, and the horse had to be

thrown overboard, and he was picked up the ninth day off the coast of

Newfoundland, on a bar, eating rushes.” This silly and ridiculous story

had been told and possibly believed by some fools more than a hundred

years before the dates here implied by Mr. Leavens. It is probable it

was first told as a joke, by some wag in Rhode Island, when asked about

the origin of the Narragansett pacers. He replied that the original

Narragansett “was caught swimming in mid-ocean, when a ship came along,

lassoed him, pulled him on board, and landed him safely in Narragansett

Bay.” The vitality of the joke probably had its origin in the experience

of Rip Van Dam, when in 1711 he went up to Narragansett for a flying

pacer, which is related in another part of this volume. Mr. Leavens

speaks of the Rev. Erastus as the owner of the dam, and the breeder of

the horse; but he says the horse did not come into possession of Isaac

Morden till he was six or eight years old. The date of his death is

fixed by Mr. Leavens in 1835, and while he is more definite than our

information from other sources, all agree he died from a kick about that

year.

The next representation that seems to be worthy of noticing is a

communication that appeared in the New York _Sportsman_, written by

somebody who signs himself “Dick.” Whether “Dick” is in earnest and

believes what he writes, or whether he is merely trying to “sell”

somebody, we will leave for him to decide. He seems to depend upon

Mr. Morden, at one time the owner of the horse, as the source of his

information. “Dick” says the sire of Tippoo was imported into New York in

1811, and was called Fleetwood. Why did he not tell us by whom the horse

Fleetwood was imported? If there was a man in New York in 1811 so big a

fool as to import an English stallion at great expense, and then send him

up to the wilderness of Canada where there was neither money nor mares,

his name should be handed down as a historical curiosity. The whole story

is a “fake.”

In January, 1883, I received from the Hon. J. P. Wiser, of Prescott,

Ontario, the following letter, which he had just received from the writer:

WELLINGTON, December 27, 1882.

As the origin of the Tippoo horses seems to be a mystery to you

I will tell you. Erastus Howard was a traveling preacher in

those days, and he traveled on horseback. He bought in Kingston

a dark chestnut mare and bred her to a horse called “The Scape

Goat,” brought from Narragansett Bay, in Rhode Island. The

horse was a large brown horse, and could rack (pace) faster

than he could run. The colt was coal black and large, and was

sold to Mr. Wilcox, who named him Tippoo Sultan. His gait was

like the “Scape” some, but soon squared off to a trot, and the

way he could go was dreadful. In June, 1836, he broke his leg

and was lost.

WILSON SERLS.

This short letter was a great surprise, for never before had I heard

of Mr. Serls. Through the kindness of Mr. Wiser he had entered the

discussion, evidently without knowing anything about what representations

had been made by others. His short, crisp sentences seemed to be an

epitome of a history of this horse, which he might be able to give. It

will be observed that the traveling preacher, Erastus Howard, is still

in the foreground, and that Mr. Leavens’ “Escape” and Mr. Serls’ “Scape

Goat” are evidently one and the same horse, and thus these two men

practically confirm each other, so far as the identity of the horse is

concerned. No time was lost in preparing a series of questions to be

submitted to Mr. Serls, embracing the sources of his information, for

although well advanced in years he certainly could not have had personal

knowledge of what he testified. These questions not only covered the

minute points in the history of the matter, but they were so framed as

to test the accuracy and honesty of his memory. In due time they came

back fully and satisfactorily answered, and as these answers embrace

many things that my readers care nothing about I will condense them into

narrative form.

Mr. Serls derived his information from his uncle, Stephen Niles, the

brother of his mother. In 1798 Stephen Niles took a band of horses to

Prince Edward County, and stopped with an uncle of his who was then a

member of the provincial parliament, living on the Bay of Quinte. His

uncle prevailed upon him to settle there. In 1800 he was married, and

bought a farm of two hundred acres four miles west of Wellington, where

he lived many years, and the place is still known as Niles’ Corners.

He was an orthodox Quaker in his religious belief, and for a number of

years he was one of the bench of magistrates for Prince Edward County.

When the War of 1812 broke out he was employed by the British forces in

procuring hay and grain for the mounted troops. In 1858 he died, leaving

an honorable name behind him.

At the close of the war the military authorities sold off a large number

of horses to the highest bidder, and Mr. Niles was present when the

traveling preacher, Erastus Howard, bid off a dark chestnut mare for

ninety-three dollars, at Kingston. This mare afterward became the dam

of the famous Tippoo, and as a matter of course nothing can ever be

known of her breeding. In 1816 a man from Rhode Island, whose name is

not definitely remembered, but believed to be Williams, traveled the

horse Scape Goat through Prince Edward County, and he stopped one day

and night in each week at the house of Stephen Niles, and during that

season Mr. Howard bred his chestnut mare to this horse, and, as already

said, the produce was Tippoo. This black colt passed into the hands

of Mr. Wilcox, who gave him his name, and he afterward passed through

several other hands before he reached Mr. Morden about 1826, and he died

ten years later from the effects of a kick. As the horse Scape Goat was

brought from Narragansett Bay, and as he was a remarkably fast pacer,

there can be no mistake in calling him a “Narragansett Pacer.” He was

considerably larger than the average of that tribe, but this does not

vitiate his title to a place in that family. It seems he was only kept in

Prince Edward County the one season, and his owner, not being satisfied

with the extent of his earnings, took him back to Rhode Island. Thus, the

horse that has been proudly designated as “Canada’s Messenger,” was the

son of a Narragansett pacer. In his younger days, Tippoo paced like his

sire, but as he grew older the trotting gait was more fully developed.

It is safe to say that the immediate progeny of Tippoo were numerous, and

it is safe to say that some of them, either as trotters or pacers, were

fast for their day, but it must be confessed that we know very little

about the way they were bred. One son was called Sportsman, but nothing

is known of his dam and very little of the horse himself beyond the fact

that he was the sire of the roan gelding Tacony, that trotted some great

races about 1853, and made a record of 2:27. This horse had a son called

Young Sportsman, that was more widely known as “the Sager Horse,” and his

horse became the sire of the trotting mare Clara, or Crazy Jane, as she

was at one time called, that made a record of 2:27 in 1867. Beyond these

two representatives of the Sportsman line, I have not been able to go. It

has been claimed that another son of Tippoo, called Wild Deer, was the

sire of the Sager Horse, but it does not seem to be well sustained. There

was a son called Wild Deer, and several others that have been mentioned

by turf writers, but no particulars of any value have been given.

Warrior, or Black Warrior, as he is sometimes called, was a brown horse

and not a black, as his latter name would imply. He was a son of old

Tippoo and his dam was a black mare owned and ridden by an officer in an

English regiment, known as the First Royals. She was a black mare and

after she was sold out of the service she was called “Black Warrior,”

and this name was transmitted to her son. This mare was for a long time

represented as the dam of Royal George, but she was the dam of his sire.

This horse was bred at Belleville, Ontario, and about 1840 a certain Mr.

Johnston was moving from Belleville to Michigan. He had this horse with

him, which, becoming lame on the way, he traded to a Mr. Barnes, living

about twenty miles south of London, Ontario. He was a valuable horse and

left many very useful animals. Many of his get were pacers, and he was

kept by Mr. Barnes till he died.

Royal George was a brown-bay horse, foaled about 1842, and was got by

Warrior, son of Tippoo. His dam was the off one of a pair of bay mares

taken to that vicinity from Middlebury, Vermont, by a Mr. Billington.

This mare got her foot in a log bridge and the injury made her a

comparative cripple for life. Being thus unfitted for road work, Mr.

Billington sold or traded her to Mr. Barnes. She was bred to Warrior

and produced Royal George. It is said by those who knew both animals,

that this mare was a better trotter than Warrior, and from this springs

the argument that Royal George had a trotting inheritance from his dam

as well as from his sire. To learn whence this inheritance came, I have

labored assiduously for years without being able to technically determine

it. The single fact that her sire in Vermont was known as “the Bristol

Horse,” is beyond all doubt, but as Mr. Billington was not living when

this search was commenced, it has not been possible to determine just

what horse is meant by “Bristol Horse.” At one time Harris’ Hambletonian

was known very widely as “Bristol Grey” or “Bristol Horse,” and this

is the only horse in the records so designated. It may, therefore, be

assumed as more than a probability that this was the sire of the dam of

Royal George.

When three or four years old he was sold by Mr. Barnes to James Forshee,

and he was known as “the Forshee Horse” for several years. He was sixteen

hands high, not very handsome, but well formed, with plenty of substance

and stamina, good action, and a first class “business” horse for anything

that was wanted of him. In the stud, at low prices, he was largely

patronized, and during the other months of the year he was employed in

all kinds of drudgery. From Forshee he passed to Frank Munger, and from

Munger to Mr. Doherty, of St. Catherines, for four hundred dollars, and

he gave him the name of Royal George, and kept him many years. In 1858 W.

H. Ashford, of Lewiston, New York, bought him and kept him two or three

years there and at Buffalo. He seems to have passed into Doherty’s hands

again, and died at St. Catherine’s, December, 1862. It is not known that

he ever had any training as a trotter except what he got from his owner

on the road, and there is no tradition of his ever having been in a race

but once, and that was on the ice at Hamilton, about 1852, against the

famous State of Maine, for a considerable wager. In this contest he was

the winner. His highest rate of speed was about 2:50 under the saddle.

He was strongly disposed to pace, but when he got down to his work his

gait was a square, mechanical trot. He left a numerous progeny with a

heavy sprinkling of pacers among them; they were generally of fine size

and very useful animals. Many of his sons were kept entire and that

whole region of Ontario was filled up with Royal Georges, to say nothing

of the large numbers that were brought across the border. He left one

representative in the 2:30 list, and five sons that became sires of

performers.

Toronto Chief was the best son of Royal George, according to the records.

He was a brown horse, foaled 1850, and was bred by George Larue, of

Middlesex County, Ontario. His dam was a small bay mare by a horse called

Blackwood, and his grandam was by Prospect. The horse Blackwood “was

bought of a Frenchman below Montreal in 1837,” and that is all that can

be said of his blood. He was a horse of fine size and went with great

courage. Toronto Chief passed through several hands before he reached

his owner, A. Bathgate, of New York. He was a horse of great speed for

his day, having a record of 2:31 in harness and 2:24¼ under saddle. He

left three representatives in the 2:30 list, and among them the famous

Thomas Jefferson, 2:23, with thirty-nine heats to his credit. Six of his

sons became sires of trotters, and five of his daughters producers. Like

all the other minor families, the Royal George family is surely being

absorbed or submerged in trotting strains of more positive and uniform

prepotency.

It is probably true that Old Columbus and Old St. Lawrence were both

descended from the Tippoo family, as they were both bred in Canada and

seemed to possess and transmit the same characteristics as the Royal

Georges possessed, in conformation and gait. Their descendants were

not numerous, but so many of them were able to show such a rate of

speed, either at the lateral or diagonal gait, that they left a distinct

trace on the trotting stock of the United States. Old Pacing Pilot has

always been classed as a Canadian, but no trace of his origin has ever

been secured, and it is impossible at this day to give any definite

information as to whether he was brought from Canada or not. Some forty

or fifty years ago the “Canadian pacers” were so highly esteemed for

their speed that very many horses were called “Canadians” that never

saw Canada. The original Tom Hal was purchased in Philadelphia as early

as 1828, and was always called a Canadian. He was the progenitor of

the great pacing family still bearing his name, that is doubtless the

most noted pacing family now in existence. Sam Hazzard, it is said, was

brought from Canada about 1844, and left some noted descendants. Many

others might be named, but as they never gained great celebrity, and as

their origin is not fully established, I will leave the Canadians for

future investigators.

The rich province of Ontario has always been, in all its ways, the most

English section of the Canadian Confederation, and in nothing more than

in horsemanship. True, it is now a great trotting region, but running is

and always has been the sport of the rich and fashionable, and almost

all the English horses imported in Canada have gone to Western Ontario.

On the other hand, in the Maritime Provinces—New Brunswick, Nova Scotia,

and Prince Edward Island—running races have never been popular, except

at Halifax, which is a great military station and socially and otherwise

much influenced by its English army and navy residents. It is the only

point in the provinces where running meetings are given or where the

running horse is at all cherished. For generations the principal sport of

the people of these provinces has been trotting and pacing races, winter

and summer, for ice racing is very general and very popular, through

Maritime as well as Western Canada, the numbers of great bays and wide

rivers affording ample courses, everywhere, throughout the long winters.

Though there is, through these provinces, a generous sprinkling of horses

called French Canadian, it is a fact that when we write the horse history

of Maine we have written that of the Maritime Canadian provinces. The

best of the early trotting stock of these provinces came from Maine,

and the most and the best of the old-time trotters of New Brunswick,

Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island were of tribes loosely described

as Maine Messengers. For this there are ample geographical and natural

reasons. That part of Quebec nearest them has never been rich in horses

nor in anything else which the Provincials want, or in which they trade.

The people of eastern New England are their natural trading neighbors,

and the city of St. John, New Brunswick, especially in the past, the

common market place; and almost all the earlier Maritime trotting sires

trace through St. John to Maine, or some of the other New England

States. It is a fact, too, that for generations enterprising horsemen,

in the lower provinces, have been importing American trotting stallions

for service, and to-day the trotting stock of these provinces is very

thoroughly Americanized. While the exportation of horses, principally to

Boston and Bangor, is one of the industries of Nova Scotia and of Prince

Edward Island especially, almost without exception trotting and pacing

stallions in use there are imported American horses, or the descendants

of American trotting sires; while, as we have noted, the foundation stock

came chiefly from Maine, and in very small degree from Ontario or Quebec.

In either of the Maritime provinces it is a rarity to find a trotting

horse that has not more or less of American blood.

CHAPTER XIII.

ANTIQUITY AND HISTORY OF THE PACING HORSE.

The mechanism of the different gaits—The Elgin Marbles—Britain

becomes a Roman province—Pacers in the time of the

Romans—Bronze horses of Venice—Fitz Stephen, the Monk of

Canterbury—Evidence of the Great Seals—What Blundeville

says—What Gervaise Markham says—What the Duke of Newcastle

says—The amble and the pace one and the same—At the close of

Elizabeth’s reign—The Galloways and Hobbies—Extinction of the

pacer—The original pacer probably from the North—Polydore

Virgil’s evidence—Samuel Purchas’ evidence—The process

of wiping out the pacer—King James set the fashion—All

foreign horses called “Arabians”—The foreigners larger and

handsomer—Good roads and wheeled vehicles dispensed with the

pacer—Result of prompting Mr. Euren—Mr. Youatt’s blunder—Other

English gentlemen not convinced there ever were any pacers.

In considering the antiquity and history of the pacing horse, it seems

to be necessary that we should have a clear perception of the mechanism

of the gait from which he takes his distinctive name and the relation

which that mechanism bears to other gaits or means of progression. In

the study of this mechanism we learn the combination by which we unlock

the mystery that has puzzled so many breeders of the past and present

generations. Some have maintained that the pace is a combination of the

trot and the gallop, while a smaller number have maintained that the fast

trot was a combination of the pace and the gallop. It is quite evident,

as I will be able to show, that neither of these parties has ever given

any careful attention and study to the mechanism of the different gaits.

The most simple and least complicated method of illustrating this

mechanism of movement is furnished in the human means of progression. At

the walk, a man steps off with his left foot and the heel of that foot

strikes the ground before the toe of the right foot leaves it. Then the

right foot advances and strikes the ground before the toe of the left

foot leaves it. This is the natural “heel and toe” walk, and the speed

may be increased by quickening the step and extending the stride, so

far as physical conformation will permit. Still greater speed becomes

a succession of bounds, the propelling foot leaving the ground before

the advanced foot strikes it. This is running, the highest rate of speed

attainable, and in every revolution, for a space, the whole body is in

the air. In the action of the horse, with four legs, we find greater

complication, which I will try to make clear.

[Illustration: STAR POINTER.

By Brown Hal, strictly pacing bred, record 1:59¼, 1897.]

First, all horses walk, all horses pace or trot, and all horses gallop.

The walk is easily analyzed, for it is slow and the movement of each

limb can be followed by the eye. Each foot makes its own stroke upon the

ground, and we count one, two, three, four in the revolution.

Second, at the gallop, which is a succession of leaps, each limb, as

shown by the instantaneous photograph, performs its own function, whether

in rising from the ground, flying through the air, or in striking the

ground again. There is harmony in all, but there is no unity in any two

or more of them, and when they strike the ground again you hear the

impacts, one, two, three, four, in a cluster. The conventional drawing

of the running horse in action is impossible in nature, and a wretched

caricature of the action as it is. As in the walk, so in the run, we

count four impacts in the revolution.

Third, at the pace the horse advances the two feet, on the same side,

at the same time, and when they reach the ground again there is but one

impact; then the two feet on the other side are advanced and strike in

the same way. Thus, the rhythm of the action strikes the ear as that of

the movement of an animal with two feet instead of four. In this there

can be no mechanical mistake, for in the revolution of the four-legged

pacing horse we count one, two, and in the revolution of the two-legged

man we count one, two. The conclusion, therefore, seems to be inevitable

that the two legs on the same side of the pacing horse act in perfect

unison in performing the functions of one leg. At the trot the horse

advances the two diagonal feet at the same time, and when they reach

the ground again there is but one impact; then the two other diagonal

feet are advanced and strike in the same way. Thus, the rhythm of the

action strikes the ear as that of the movement of an animal with two feet

instead of four. In this there can be no mechanical mistake, for in the

revolution of the four-legged trotting horse we count one, two, and in

the revolution of the two-legged man we count one, two. The conclusion,

therefore, seems to be inevitable that the two diagonal legs of the

trotting horse act in perfect unison in performing the function of one

leg. In the mechanism of the gait then that is midway between the walk

and the gallop there is no difference in results, nor distinction in the

economy of motion, except that the pacer uses the lateral legs as one,

and the trotter the diagonal legs as one. In use, there is a vertical

distinction, if that term should be allowed, between the gait of the

pacer and the trotter. The action of the pacer is lower and more gliding

which fits him for the saddle, while the action of the trotter is higher

and more bounding which makes him more desirable as a harness horse.

In the processes of inter-breeding to the fastest, this distinction,

if it be a distinction, seems to be coming less real, or at least less

observable.

While the essential oneness of the pace and the trot is indicated above

from the mechanism and unity of the two gaits, there is a great mountain

of evidence to be developed when we reach the consideration of breeding

subjects, in which we will meet multitudes of fast trotters getting fast

pacers, and fast pacers getting fast trotters; fast pacers changed over

to fast trotters and fast trotters changed over to fast pacers, and the

final evidence that speed at the one gait means speed at the other.

Having briefly explained what a pacer is, it is now in order to take up

the question of whence he came.

On the summit of the Acropolis, in Athens, stand the ruins of the

Parthenon, a magnificent temple erected to the goddess Minerva. The

building was commenced in the year B.C. 437, and was completed five years

afterward. All the statuary was the work of the famous Phidias and his

scholars, made from Pentelic marble. This noted building resisted all the

ravages of time, and had, in turn, been converted into a Christian temple

and a Turkish mosque. In 1676 it was still entire, but in 1687 Athens was

besieged by the Venetians, and the Parthenon was hopelessly wrecked. As

a ruin it became the prey of the Turks and all other devastators, and in

order to save something of what remained of its precious works of art,

Lord Elgin, about the year 1800, brought home to England some portions

of the frieze of the temple, with other works of Phidias, in marble,

sold them to the government, and they are preserved in the British

Museum. This frieze is a most interesting subject to study, not only as a

specimen of Greek art of the period of Pericles, but as a historic record

of the type and action of the Greek horses of that day. It consists

of a series of white marble slabs, something over four feet wide, upon

which are sculptured, in high relief, the heroes and defenders of Athens,

mounted on horses, and some of these horses are pacing, while others are

trotting and cantering. This is the first undoubted record we have of the

pacer, and it is now over two thousand three hundred and thirty years old.

Britain became a Roman province in the reign of Claudius, in the first

part of the first century of the Christian era, and it continued under

the Roman yoke until A.D. 426, when the troops were withdrawn to help

Valentinian against the Huns, and never returned. When Julius Cæsar

first invaded Britain, in the year B.C. 55, he found the inhabitants

fierce and warlike and abundantly supplied with horses and war chariots.

These chariots were driven with great daring and skill, and the fact

was thus demonstrated that this kind of warfare was not a new thing to

the Britons, and that they were not to be easily subdued. The next year

he returned again, but the second seems to have been no more successful

than the first expedition. But little is known of the extent of territory

overrun or the result of these invasions beyond the fact that no

settlement was made then, and none till about ninety years afterward,

when under the reign of Claudius, a strong military colony was planted

there and Britain became a Roman province. During these centuries of

bondage we know practically nothing of the lives of the slaves and but

little of their masters, except the remnants of military works for

aggression and defence, and the magnificent roads they constructed

where-ever they moved their armies. In relation to their horses, I will

make a few extracts from a work published about the beginning of this

century, by Mr. John Lawrence, a man of great research and intelligence,

besides of a wide acquaintance with the practical affairs of the horse,

and, I may add, altogether the most reliable writer of his period. He

says:

“In forming the paces, if the colt was not naturally of a proud

and lofty action, like the Spanish or Persian horses, wooden

rollers and weights were bound to their pastern joints, which

gave them the habit of lifting up their feet. This method,

also, was practiced in teaching them the ambulatura, or amble

(pace), perhaps universally the common traveling pace of the

Romans.

“That natural and most excellent pace, the trot, seems to

have been very little prized or attended to by the ancients,

and was, indeed, by the Romans held in a kind of contempt,

or aversion, as is demonstrated by the terms which served to

describe it. A trotting horse was called by them _succussator_,

or shaker, and sometimes _cruciator_, or tormentor, which bad

terms, it may be presumed, were applied specially to those

which in these days we dignify with the expressive appellation

of ‘bone-setters.’”

The statuary of the early ages furnishes some excellent illustrations

of the gait of the horse at that period of the world’s history. The

four bronze horses on St. Mark’s in Venice are known throughout the

world, and they are in the pacing attitude. The forefoot that is

advanced is possibly a little too much elevated to strike the ground

the same instant the hinder foot should strike it, but the whole action

indicated is undoubtedly the lateral action. The date of these horses

is lost in history, but it is supposed they were cast in Rome, about

the beginning of the Christian era. Their capture in Rome and transfer

to Constantinople, then their capture by the Venetians and transfer to

Venice, next their capture by Napoleon and transfer to Paris, and then

their restoration to Venice, are all matters of history.

William Stephanides, or Fitz Stephen, as he was called, a monk of

Canterbury, was born in London, lived in the reigns of King Stephen,

Henry II., and Richard I., and died 1191. He wrote a description of

London in Latin, which was afterward translated by John Strype, and

printed, from which I take the following extract:

“There is without one of the gates, immediately in the suburb,

a certain smooth field (Smithfield) in name and reality. There

every Friday, unless it be one of the more solemn festivals, is

a noted show of well-bred horses exposed for sale. The earls,

barons and knights who are at the time resident in the city,

as well as most of the citizens, flock thither either to look

or to buy. _It is pleasant to see the nags with their sleek

and shining coats, smoothly ambling (pacing) along, raising

and setting down, as it were, their feet on either side; in

one part (of the field) are horses better adapted to the

esquires; those whose pace is rougher, yet expeditious, lift up

and set down, as it were, the two opposite fore and hind feet

(trotting) together._”

After locating and describing the pacers in one part of the field and

the trotters in another, Fitz Stephen goes on to take a look at the

colts, then horses of burden, “strong and stout of limb,” and then

their chargers in their galloping action. He next gives a very spirited

description of the race, when the people raise a shout and all the other

horses, cattle, etc., are cleared away, that the contestants may have

an unobstructed field. It is a fact worthy of note that every English

writer on the race horse, for the past century or two, has quoted a part

of the above paragraph from Fitz Stephen as the first known and recorded

instance of racing in England, but left one of the most important parts

out. Even Mr. Whyte, one of the most prominent of modern writers, in his

“History of the British Turf,” seems to have followed some other writer,

in the omission; or possibly, as he never had seen a pacer in England, he

concluded that Fitz Stephen had only imagined that he saw, in one part

of the field, horses moving at the lateral gait. In the paragraph quoted

above, I have italicised that part of the description which English

writers on turf subjects have omitted with remarkable uniformity.

This seems to have been the period in which the pacing horse reached the

highest point in official and popular appreciation, at least since the

days of the Roman occupation of Britain. In speaking of this period,

Mr. Lawrence says: “All descriptions of saddle horses were taught to

amble” (that did not amble naturally), “and that most excellent and

useful gait, the trot, was almost entirely disused.” In addition to the

evidence of Fitz Stephen, we have that furnished by the Great Seals of

a succession of sovereigns commencing with Richard I., and continuing

to Elizabeth. These seals represent a knight in armor, mounted on a

pacing horse in action, and perhaps the most conspicuous, at least the

clearest, impression that has come down to us is that of King John, used

at Runnymede, when he yielded to the demands of his barons and granted

the Magna Charta. This act secured the liberties of the Anglo-Saxon race

for all time and in all climes.

Mr. Thomas Blundeville was, probably, the first writer on the horse who

undertook to publish a book in the English language on that subject.

This book, entitled “The Art of Riding,” was merely a translation from

the Italian, with some brief observations on English horses added to it.

The first edition, it is said, was published in London, 1558, the year

that Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne. The only edition which I have

been able to find in the British Museum is that of 1580, in old English

black letter. In quoting from the old authors of that period I will seek

to avoid confusion by using the modern orthography. In speaking of the

horses of his day he says:

“Some men would have a breed of great trotting horses meet for

the war and to serve in the field. Some others again would have

a breed of ambling horses of a mean stature for to journey and

travel by the way. Some, again, would have a race of swift

runners to run for wagers or to gallop the buck, or to serve

for such like exercise for pleasure. But the plain countryman

would have a breed only for draft or burthen.

“The Irish Hobbie is a pretty fine horse, having a good head

and a body indifferently well proportioned, saving that many

of them be slender and pin-buttocked. They are tender-mouthed,

nimble, pleasant and apt to be taught, and for the most part

they be amblers and thus very meet for the saddle and to travel

by the way. Yea, and the Irishmen, both with darts and light

spears, do use to skirmish with them in the field, and many of

them do prove to that use very well, by means they be so light

and swift.

“Let those mares that shall be put to the stallion be of a high

stature, strongly made, large and fair, and have a trotting

pace as the mares of Flanders and some of our own mares be. For

it is not meet, for divers reasons, that horses of [service

stallions] should amble. But if any man seeks to have a race

of ambling horses, to travel by the way, then I would wish his

stallion to be a fair jennet of Spain, or at least a bastard

jennet, or else a fair Irish ambling Hobbie; and the mare to be

also a bastard jennet, bred here within this realm, having an

ambling pace, or else some other of our ambling mares, so that

the mare be well proportioned. And if any man desires to have

swift runners let him choose a horse of Barbary or a Turk to be

his stallion, and let the mare, which shall be put unto him,

be like of stature and making unto him, so nigh as may be, for

most commonly, such sire and dam such colt.”

It is evident Mr. Blundeville was not much of a friend of the pacer, but

as an honest writer he considers things as he finds them. Unfortunately

he throws no light upon just what he means by the term “Spanish Jennet,”

and a definition of that term, as used in the sixteenth century, would

throw much light on passages from following writers in later periods.

Everybody knows he was a small Spanish saddle horse, but nobody knows

just what gait he took. To use Blundevilles own language, “The pace of

the jennet of Spain is neither trot nor amble, but a comely kind of going

like the Turke.”

Mr. Gervaise Markham published several revised and enlarged editions of

his work on the horse, the last of which I have been able to examine

being printed in London, 1607, the same year the colony was planted at

Jamestown, Virginia. In this edition he devotes nine short chapters or

paragraphs to the pacer. In quoting from him I will again use the modern

methods of spelling. He says:

“First to speak of ambling in general. It is that smooth and

easy pace which the labor and industry of an ingenious brain

hath found out to relieve the aged, sick, impotent and diseased

persons, to make women undertake journeying and so by their

community to grace society; to make great men try the ease of

travel, more willing to thrust themselves into the offices of

the commonwealth, and to do the poor both relief and service.

It makes them when necessity, or as the proverb is, “when

the devil drives,” not to be vexed with the two torments, a

troubled mind and a tormented body. To conclude, ambling was

found out for the general ease of the whole world, as long as

there is either pleasure, commerce or trade amongst the people.

Now for the manner of the motion and the difference betwixt

it and trotting. It cannot be described more plainly than I

have set down in my former treatise; which is that it is the

taking up of both legs together upon one side and so carrying

them smoothly along to set them down upon the ground even

together, and in that motion he must lift and wind up his fore

foot somewhat high from the ground, but his hinder foot he must

no more than take from the ground, as it were, sweep it close

to the earth. Now, by taking up both his legs together on one

side, I mean he must take up his right fore foot and his right

hinder foot. For, as in the contrary pace, when a horse trots

he takes up his feet crosswise, as the left hinder foot and the

right fore foot, etc.”

Mr. Markham, in his edition of 1607, then goes on in six or eight

chapters acknowledging that many foals pace naturally, and to show how

the foal may be trained to pace. His methods are very cruel, in many

cases, and very crude throughout; but it clearly demonstrates the fact

that in the sixteenth century the pace was a very general gait among

English horses. In these chapters we find the toe weight first introduced

as well as the trammels or hopples. The most striking fact brought out in

these chapters is the discovery that more than three hundred years ago

Englishmen were using the same devices to convert trotters into pacers

that we are now using to convert pacers into trotters. He takes notice

that Mr. Blundeville had advised those who wished to breed amblers to

select a Spanish jennet or an Irish Hobbie, and objects to the former on

the grounds that their paces are weak and uncertain. From this I conclude

that the gait of the jennet, whatever it might have been, was not a habit

of action fixed in the breed, and that its transmission was doubtful.

Mr. Markham then goes on further to explain the mechanism of the trot

and the pace and incidentally introduces the rack or single-foot action,

which, I think, is the first time I have found it in any English writer.

He says:

“The nearer a horse taketh his limbs from the ground, the

opener and evener and the shorter he treadeth, the better will

be his pace, and the contrary declares much imperfection. If

you buy a horse for pleasure the amble is the best, in which

you observe that he moves both his legs on one side together

neat with complete deliberation, for if he treads too short

he is apt to stumble, if too large to cut and if shuffling or

rowling he does it slovenly, and besides rids no ground. If

your horse be designed for hunting, a racking pace is most

expedient, which little differs from the amble, only is more

active and nimble, whereby the horse observes due motion, but

you must not force him too eagerly, lest being in confusion he

lose all knowledge of what you design him to, and so handle his

legs confusedly. The gallop is requisite for race horses....

If he gallop round and raise his fore legs he is then said to

gallop strongly, but not capable of much speed, and is fitter

for the war than racing.”

In 1667 the Duke of Newcastle published his famous work on the horse

under the title, “A New Method and Extraordinary Invention to Dress

Horses, and Work them According to Nature and also To Perfect Nature by

the Subtilty of Art which was Never Found Out, but by the Thrice Noble,

High, and Puissant Prince, William Cavendish, Duke, Marquess, and Earl of

Newcastle, etc., etc.,” followed with twelve other titles and offices.

The book was dedicated to “His Most Sacred Majesty, Charles the Second,”

and is pretentious and magniloquent in its letter press and its make-up

as it is in its title. In this work there is a great deal of bad English,

some sense, and much nonsense, all mixed up with a strut of superiority

that His Grace, no doubt, felt justified in enjoying after his long

years of beggary in Antwerp. In giving the _natural_ gaits of the horse

he places the walk first, then the trot and next the amble, which he

describes very minutely as follows:

“For an amble he removes both his legs of a side, as, for

example, take the far side, he removes his fore leg and his

hinder leg at one time, whilst the other two legs of the near

side stand still; and when those legs are on the ground, which

he first removed, at the same time they are upon the ground

the other side, which is the nearer side, removes fore leg and

hinder leg on that side, and the other legs of the far side

stand still. Thus an amble removes both his legs of a side and

every remove changes sides; two of a side in the air and two

upon the ground at the same time. And this is a perfect amble.”

The duke seems to have been somewhat profuse in the use of words, and

not very happy in his use of them, but after all we know just what he

means. The description of the movement is that of the clean-cut pace, and

our object in introducing it here is not only to show that the pace was

then a well-known and natural gait in England, but also to show that the

_pace_ and the _amble_ are one. In itself, the word “amble” is a better

word than “pace,” for the latter is often used in referring to a rate of

speed without regard to the particular gait taken by the horse, but in

this country it is now universally understood to apply to the lateral

motion, and it would not be wise at this day to attempt to change it.

There is an undefined supposition in the mind of some people that the

amble is something different from the pace, that it is a slower and

less pronounced gait, and hence we are often told a given horse did not

pace, but “he ambled off.” In all that we have found in the writings of

the past, and in all that I have seen with my own eyes, I have not been

able to discover that there is any distinction between the amble and the

pace. The only distinction is not in the gait itself, but in the fact

that our ancestors, four hundred years ago, used the word “amble” to

express precisely the same thing that their descendants now express by

the word “pace.” The only sense in which the word “amble” is used among

the horsemen of this country is to describe a kind of slow, incipient

pace that many horses, both runners and trotters, show when recalled for

a fresh start in scoring for a race. This probably indicates, whether

in the case of a runner or a trotter, that somewhere, not very far

removed, there is a pacing inheritance, and this incipient amble, as it

is sometimes called, comes from that inheritance. It is also possible

that it may arise from the excitement of the start and the confusion

consequent upon the contest.

At the close of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, about the beginning of the

seventeenth century, the pacing horse of England was at the highest point

of his utility and fame. He was the horse for the race course, he was

the horse for the hunting field, and he was the horse for the saddle. He

was able to beat King James’ Arabian, and with the few Barbs that had

then been brought in, the historian informs us, he was able to hold his

own. There were two tribes of his congeners, the Galloway and the Irish

Hobbie, the former from Southwestern Scotland and the north of England,

and the latter from Ireland. These tribes were chiefly pacers, and not a

few of them were distinguished as running horses. The Bald Galloway, as

he was called, was a grand representative of his tribe. He was simply a

native pony with a bald face, and he was a capital runner for his day,

and a number of his get were distinguished runners. True, he is tricked

out in the Stud Book with a pedigree, wholly fictitious, and that nobody

ever heard of for a hundred years after he was foaled, but that did

not prevent his daughter Roxana, when bred to Godolphin Arabian, from

producing two of his greatest sons, Lath and Cade. This topic, however,

has already been considered in the chapter on the English Race Horse.

The Galloways were very famous as pacers in their day, and it seems they

were about the last remnants of the pacing tribes to be found in England.

It seems, also, that long after they had ceased to be known on the

other side their descendants were still known by the same designation in

Virginia. From the history of the times, it appears that a wealthy Irish

gentleman invested quite largely in shipping live stock to Virginia, and

there can hardly be a doubt that his shipments included some of the Irish

Hobbies.

While the opening of the seventeenth century witnessed the supremacy of

the English pacer, in the uses and enjoyments of the lives of the people,

during the whole course of its succeeding years he was battling for his

existence, and at its close he was nearly extinct. At the close of Queen

Anne’s reign there were still a few Galloways left, but in the early

Georges there were no longer any survivors, and Great Britain was without

a pacer in the whole realm. The extinction of a race of horses that had

been the delight of the kings, queens, nobility, and gentry of a great

nation for many centuries is, perhaps, without a precedent in the history

of any civilized people, and the causes which produced this wonderful

result are well worthy of careful study. In looking into these causes we

must consider the facts as we find them.

As we have no guide, either historic, linguistic or ethnographic, by

which we can certainly determine the blood of the original inhabitants

of the British Isles, it is not remarkable that we should be in profound

ignorance as to the blood of their horses. They were, doubtless, like

their masters, of mixed origin, and through all the centuries their

appearance would indicate that they have been bred and reared in a

nomadic or semi-wild state, in which only the toughest and fleetest

had survived. A good many years ago I met with a theory, advanced by

somebody, that the original horse stock of Britain came from the North,

but there were no reasons given to support it. I have no hesitation in

accepting this theory, as far as it distinguishes between the North

and the South, for some Northern countries produce vast numbers of

natural pacers, as Russia, for instance, but I have never learned that

any Southern country produced pacers. Certainly the shaft horse of

the Russian drosky has been a flying pacer for generations, and great

numbers of them are produced in Russia, especially in the eastern part

of the empire. As these pacers are produced in a natural and semi-wild

state, it must be conceded that habits of action have been inherited

from their ancestors in the remote past. Historically, we know that

the Phœnicians, when they ruled the trade of the world, supplied the

whole of the northern coast of Africa, from Egypt to Algiers, and the

southern coast of Spain, with horses, about a thousand years before the

Christian era. Now, the horses of those regions are the descendants of

the original stock carried there by the Phœnicians, and we know their

habit of action is not that of the pacer. Hence the conclusion that the

English pacer came from the North and not from the South. In speaking of

the difference in the gaits of Northern and Southern horses, Mr. John

Lawrence specifies the horses of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, etc., and says:

“They are round made, but with clean heads and limbs; their best pace

is the trot (or pace), which indeed is the characteristic pace of the

Northern, as the gallop is of the Southern horse.” Other writers speak

of the trot (or pace) as common to Northern horses, but as not common

to Southern horses. Now, as all Southern horses do trot, and as these

writers could not fail to know that they trotted, at some rate of speed,

we must construe their terms so as to be consistent with plain, common

sense. There was something in the “trot” of the Northern horse altogether

different from the “trot” of the Southern horse that rendered his habit

of action more conspicuous, probably by his higher rate of speed, but

still more probably by the peculiar mechanism of his lateral action. If

we insert the word “pace” instead of the word “trot,” the meaning of

these old writers becomes very plain and in harmony with other known

facts. Neither does it militate against the theory that the inhabitants

of Britain may have secured their original horse stock from the Phœnician

merchants; but if they did, it seems quite evident that at a later date

they supplemented their supply from the pacing element from the North.

At the close of the fifteenth century Polydore Virgil, an Italian

ecclesiastic, came to England and wrote a descriptive history of the

British Islands in Latin, which was published about 1509. Part of

this history was very clumsily translated about the time the English

language began to assume its present form in literature and learning.

In speaking of the horses of the country, he seems to have been greatly

surprised with the pacers, and treats them as a curiosity. He says: “A

great company of their horses do not trot, but amble, and yet neither

trotters nor amblers are strongest, as strength is not always incident

to that which is most gentle or less courageous.” It will be observed

that these observations were made nearly four hundred years ago, and that

the surprise of the Italian was not at merely seeing a few pacers which

he had never seen in his own country, but that “the great company” of

English horses were pacers. As I have here given an instance showing the

surprise of an Italian at finding pacers, I will follow it with another

showing the surprise of an Englishman at not finding any pacers. The

chaplain of the Earl of Cumberland, on his several voyages of discovery

in South America and the West India Islands, about 1596, made elaborate

note of what he saw and learned of the new countries which the English

then visited for the first time. These notes passed into the hands of

that wonderfully prolific writer, or rather compiler, Samuel Purchas,

from whose fourth volume, page 1171, the following paragraph is taken:

“And I wot not how that kind of beast [speaking of cattle]

hath specially a liking to these Southerly parts of the world

above their horses, none of which I have seen by much so tall

and goodly as ordinarily they are in England; they were well

made and well mettled, and good store there are of them, but

methinks there are many things wanting in them which are

ordinary in our English light horses. They are all trotters,

nor do I remember that I have seen above one ambler, and that

was a little fiddling nag. But it may be if there were better

breeders they would have better and more useful increase, yet

they are good enough for hackneys, to which use only almost

they are employed.”

The surprise of the Englishman at finding no pacers in South America

seems to have been as great as that of the Italian at finding so many of

them in England, one hundred years earlier. These horses were strictly

Spanish, and probably were descended from those brought from Palos in

1493 by Columbus, the first horses that ever crossed the Atlantic. The

“one little fiddling nag” that showed some kind of a pacing gait may have

been of English blood and captured from some English expedition, several

of which were unfortunate; or his failure to trot may have been the

result of an injury. It should not be forgotten that in that period every

sea captain was out for what he could capture, and this was especially

the case as between the English and the Spanish. These are the outlines

of the principal points of evidence that the pacing habit of action came

from the North and not from the South. That there were pacers in both

Greece and Rome before the Christian era, and perhaps later, there can be

no doubt, for they were both overrun and devastated again and again by

the hordes of Northern Barbarians, bringing their flocks and their herds

and their families, as well as their horses, with them.

This question naturally suggests itself here: “If the English pacer had

been the popular favorite of the English people for so many centuries,

how did it come that he and his habit of action had been so completely

wiped out in one century, the seventeenth?” This question might be

answered in very few words, by saying the people thought they were

getting something better to put in his place. In reaching this conclusion

I will not pretend to say the judgment of the people was not right, that

is, if they exercised any judgment in the case. “Jamie the Scotsman”

when on the throne set the fashion in the direction of foreign blood

by paying the enormous price of five hundred pounds for the Markham

Arabian. The Duke of Newcastle, when he was young, had personally seen

this horse, and while he thought he was a true Arabian, he described him

as a very ordinary horse in his size and form, and an entire failure as

a race horse. It seems that any average native pacer could outrun him,

but he carried the badge of royalty, and that was sufficient to make him

fashionable, as he was not only the king’s horse, but was himself a royal

Arabian. The weak place in the character of James I., in addition to his

intolerable pedantry, was his inordinate ambition to be considered the

wisest sovereign who ever sat upon a throne since the days of Solomon.

His courtiers, nobility, and all who approached him understood his

weakness, and a little quiet praise of the great superiority of the

Arabian blood in the horse, over all other breeds and varieties, was

always grateful to the monarch, for he was the original discoverer and

patentee of that blood. Then and there, in order to praise the wisdom

of a foolish king, a foolish fashion grew into a foolish notion that

has afflicted all England from that day to this. No humbug of either

ancient or modern times has had so long a run and so wide a range as

the miserable fallacy “that all excellence in the horse comes from the

Arabian.” Notwithstanding the thousand tests that have been made and the

thousand failures that have invariably followed, from the time of King

James to the present day, there are still men writing books and magazine

articles on the assumption that “all excellence in the horse comes from

the Arabian,” without ever having devoted an honest hour to the study of

the question as to whether this is a truth or a fallacy. This craze for

Arabian blood was the primary cause of the extinction of the pacer, and

this craze was so strong in its influence that when a foreign horse was

brought in, no difference from what country, if he were of the lighter

type he was called an Arabian and so advertised in order to secure

the patronage of breeders. Horses brought from the African coast were

invariably classed as Arabians, notwithstanding they and their ancestors

were in Africa more than a thousand years before there were any horses in

Arabia; and the same may be said of Spain. But as this line of inquiry

has already been considered in another chapter, I will get back to the

immediate topic.

The process of breeding out the pacer did not commence in real earnest

until the middle of the seventeenth century, when the Stuarts regained

the sovereignty of Great Britain in the person of Charles II. Released

from the restraints of Puritan rule, the Restoration brought with it a

carnival of immorality and vice, for the court and the courtiers set the

fashion and the people followed. As the breeding interest of the period

of which we now speak has already been considered in the chapter on the

English Race Horse, I will not further enlarge upon it. The light, or

running and hunting, horses of England of that day were not all pacers,

but they were all of the same type and the same blood, hence when I

speak of the pacers I include their congeners. They were small—less than

fourteen hands high—and not generally handsome and attractive. In general

utility they were ahead of the importations, and doubtless many of them

could run as fast and as far as the foreign horses, but the foreigners

had the advantage in size, especially the Turks and the Neapolitans;

besides this, they were more uniformly handsome and attractive in their

form and carriage. It is also probable that the outcross from the

strangers to invigorate the stock was needed and resulted in the increase

of the size of the progeny. This latter suggestion is inferential and has

been sustained by many similar experiences, but without this as a start

it would be exceedingly difficult to account for the rapid increase in

the height of the English race horse. It is certainly true that the chief

aim of the English breeder of that day was to increase the size, without

losing symmetry and style, and if he found that foreign upon native blood

gave him a start in that direction, he was wise in the commingling.

Another consideration, growing out of the rural economy of the people,

doubtless had a very wide influence in the direction of wiping out the

pacer, in this period of transition. Long journeys in the saddle became

less frequent, good roads began to appear and vehicles on wheels took

the place of the saddler and the pack horse. To get greater weight and

strength for this service, recourse was had to crosses with the larger

and courser breeds, and through these channels have come the giants and

the pigmies of the modern race course. Under the changed conditions of

travel and transportation it is not remarkable that the people should

have been willing to see their long-time favorites disappear, for it

is known to every man of experience that the pace is not a desirable

gait for harness work. No doubt the pacer is as strong as the trotter

of the same size and make-up, but in his smooth, gliding motion there

is a suggestion of weakness communicated to his driver that is never

suggested by the bold, bounding trotter. The antagonism between the

pacers and the new horses of Saracenic origin was irreconcilable and

one or the other had to yield. As the management of the contest was in

the hands of the master the result could be easily foreseen, for if one

cross failed, another followed and then another, till the Saracenic blood

was completely dominant in eliminating the lateral and implanting the

diagonal action in its stead.

As no home-bred pacer, of any type or breed, has been seen in England for

nearly two hundred years, it is not remarkable that Englishmen of good

average intelligence, for the past two or three generations, have lived

and died supposing they knew all about horses, and yet did not know there

had ever been such a thing in England as a breed of pacing horses. When,

some eighteen or twenty years ago, I called the attention of Mr. H. F.

Euren, compiler of the Hackney Stud Book, to the early English pacers as

a most inviting field in which to look for the origin of the “Norfolk

Trotters,” he was surprised to learn that such horses had existed in

England, but he went to work and gathered up many important facts that

appear in the first volume of the Hackney compilation. Many of these

facts, but in less detail, had already appeared, from time to time,

in _Wallace’s Monthly_, but Mr. Euren’s was the first modern English

publication to place them before English readers. From this prompting,

Mr. Euren did well, but we must go back a little to see how this subject

was treated by English writers of horse books, who wrote without any

promptings from this side.

Mr. William Youatt was a voluminous writer on domestic animals, and at

one time was looked upon as the highest authority on the horse, both

in England and in this country. He seems to have been a practitioner of

veterinary surgery, and from the number of volumes which he published

successfully, he must have been a man of ability and education. There can

be no question that he knew a great deal—quite too much to know anything

well. The first edition of his work on the horse was published in 1831,

and soon after its appearance several publishing houses in this country

seized upon it as very valuable, and each one of them soon had an edition

of it before the public. It purports to have been written at the instance

of “The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.” This declaration

was a good thing, in a commercial view, and no doubt it did much in

extending the circulation of the book. Without tarrying to note several

minor historical blunders, I will go direct to one relating to the gait

of the horse, which is now under consideration. In his fourth edition,

page 535, he incidentally discusses the mechanism of the pace, and after

speaking of the Elgin Marbles, to which I have referred at the beginning

of this chapter, and after conceding that two of the four horses are not

galloping but pacing, he says:

“Whether this was then the mode of trotting or not, it is

certain that it is never seen to occur in nature in the

present day; and, indeed, it appears quite inconsistent with

the necessary balancing of the body, and was, therefore, more

probably an error of the artist.”