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History of American Thoroughbred " I . j. Y. r. Y. f; I I. In spite of general interest in racing at the q present lime knowledge of the history of the ti horse in this country, the time and manner y of his transplantation from other climes, is far from general. Few books of an authentic nature on this snbject have been written and P the circulation of those that have appeared lias been restricted. More than half a ecu- s tury after publication Frank Foresters The S Horse of America still stands as the author- ity on the early history of the horse in this l, country. The story is as fascinating as a 11 romantic novel and the fact that it lays the P foundations of the present-day American thor- ti oughbred makes it of more than passing in- li terest. The first installment, which- appeared v in a recent issue of Daily Racing Form. v covered the earliest period in the history of the horse In this country. The second install- s ment treats of horse development and the v results of early breeding experiments, bringing a out the essential differences between the Eng- a fish horse and the American horse of this same o of early period. g Second Installment 0 By all rules of breeding, based on experience and reduced to certainty, the early American families of horses, such as the Narragansett pacers, the Morgan, Black Hawk and Canadians, could not continue a "without degeneration unless they wore fur- 0 ther crossed with pure blood. If mares of 0 a any family, unmixed, be stinted to unmixed stallions of the same family, generation after s generation, the result is as certain as it is that the earth revolves on its axis. The t good blood .will die out and the progeny, f sooner or later, become degenerate, weak C and worthless. Again, to breed stallions of such a family I 1 to mares of better blood must, necessarily, t fail ; for though it has often been attempted J to produce improved bone and power by put- ting blood mares to bony, underbred stal- t lions, it has never succeeded. During the middle of the last century it became universally known and conceded that in order i to improve the races the sire must be the 1 superior animal. Indeed, it is argued with . i much probability that a mare once crossed 1 with a sire of different blood not only pro- 1 duces but becomes herself a cross and is t incapable of ever again producing her own strain. . MYSTERIES OF IIREEDIISG THEORY. Thus a thorough mare, once stinted to a i cold-blooded horse, could never again bear i the pure colt, even to a pure sire. On the other hand, a cold-blooded mare, having once 1 foaled to a thorough horse, would always j be improved as a breeder by the change pro- duced in her own constitution. This is a mysterious and difficult subject and it is 1 probable that the question is not fully sounded. I am satisfied, however, that there is i much in it and I shall enter more largely into the matter when I come to treat especially of breeding. At the present time I only wish to record it as my opinion that the supposed superiority of any of these breeds is only attributable to their possessing a larger share than ordinary horses, of pure blood and that this superiority cannot last without further admixture. Therefore, while I should expect no possible advantage from breeding a Morgan, or Messenger, one-third part bred mare, to a similarly bred stallion, I should look forward confidently to a vastly superior progeny by putting her to a powerful sire of pure blood. Again, by putting an entirely cold-blooded mare, say of Norman, Cleveland bay or Flemish blood to a Morgan or Messenger third-part horse, I should expect to get an animal improved above the dam, but not so much improved as I should had she been put to a properly selected animal of undisputed blood. In a word, unless I were intending to breed dray horses, cart horses or punches, I would never put a mare to a half-bred sire at all ; and even of these, excepting the dray horse, I am satisfied that they Avould be bettered by a cross of blood. A1VCESTR1 OF CAADIA" HORSE. The original Canadians were, I have no 1 doubt, of pure Norman and Breton descent. Since the Canadas have been under Britisli rule they, too, have been mixed and improved largely by the introduction of a pure strain, so that the animals which, about 1S50, passed under the name of Canadians, such as Moscow, , Lady Moscow ancr many others of name, were Canadians only by title. They differed only from other American roadsters in the fact that they had, for the most part," two crosses of the Norman and pure ; English blood, while the ordinary road horse ! or the United States had, in those days, a combination of several English distinct families with French, Spanish and Flemish crosses, besides a strain of thorough blood. Of trotters it is certain that there is no distinctive breed or family or mode of breeding. The power, the style, the action, the mode of going are the things. It is most possible that the speed and the endurance both of weight and distance depend, more or less, on the greater or inferior degree of bloou in the animal. Th.ere is no doubt whatever in my own mind tnat to have allowed such men as Hiram "Woodruff, George Spicer ana others 3 of the same kidney who were so ciosely identified " with the first substantial progress in the development of the American thoroughbred, to select such horses as they should pick for shape, bone, action, movement and blood out of the best hunting stables in England would have resulted in a larger proportion of animals capable or making as good time as has been made here. It is to the fact that no favor has been ever attached to trotting, either as a national sport or as an amusement of the wealthier classes; to the fact that all the best and most promising animals, which would in this country have been used on ti.e road or tue trotting course, were there employed in the hunting field ; to the fact that trotting rules, trotting training and trotting riding or driving were all, in England, imperfect, injudicious and inferior; anu lastly to the fact that the animals used as trotters, themselves of inferior quality, were almost entirely in the hands of persons of interior means and equal character, that must be ascribed to the irferiority of the early English trotter. No such distinc- i.on is discoverable against the English hunter, carriage horse, cavalry horse, riding hacn. or race horse of the same period. It is to the great early popularity of trotting in this country, to the great excellence of the trotting trainers, drivers and riders arising from that popularity and to the em ployment of all the best half and three- q ti y P s S l, 11 P ti li v v s v a a o of g 0 a 0 0 a s t f C I 1 t J t i 1 . i 1 1 t i i 1 j 1 i 1 , ; ! 3 " quarter-part bred horses in the land for trotting purposes none being diverted from that use for the hunting field or park riding that w-2 must ascribe the wonderful superiority of the early American roadster. It may be added that this view of the subject is confirmed by the fact that in the southern and southwestern states, where the persons of wealth and horse owners were, for the most part, agriculturists and rural proprietors, rather than dwellers in cities, trotting has never taken root to anything like the extent It has to the north and eastward. On the contrary, where trotting prevails, it is as difficult to procure handsome, well-broken and well-bitted gallopers, with stylish action, a good turn of speed and able to stay a distance under a weight as it is easy to find an undeniable trotter, equal appearance and performance that shall go his mile low down in the thirties, or his fifteen miles in the hour on a square trot EXCELLENCE OF AMERICAN HORSE. . The effect of all this, as I have said, probably not a little the result of the mixture of breeds, has been to produce in America general horse for all purposes, omitting only the hunting field and park or parade ground, that cannot be equaled in the world. On my first arrival in this country, when the eye is more awake to distinctions than after it has become used by years of acquaintance to what It has daily before it and forgetful of . what it has ceased to see, was particularly struck by the fact that the American general horse, as compared with the English horse, was inferior in height of the forehand, In the loftiness and thinness of the withers and in the setting on and carriage of the neck and crest. He was superior in the general development of his quarters, in the let-down of h!s hams and in his height behind, and farther remarkable for his formation, approaching to what is often seen in the Irish horse and known as the goose rump. I still think that these are prevailing and characteristic differences of the horses in the two countries. Even in the race horse, purely of English blood, I fancy that I can perceive the same distinction prevailing, the American racer standing mucli higher behind and lower before than his English congener. My judgment on this point seems to be confirmed by an examination of the portraits given in the "Spirit of the Times" of many celebrated English and American horses, by which it appears that Boston, Wagner and Shark measured exactly the same at the withers and the highest point of the croup; that Black Maria, in a drawing of a little under six and a half inches, measures two-tenths of an inch lower before than behind, while all the English horses are from one to two-tenths higher before. REASON FOR DIFFERENCE ELUSTYE. To what this difference in construction is owing I do not pretend even to conjecture, nor whether it has or has not any effect on comparative speed. This difference was more conspicuous, up to the middle of the last century, in roadsters rather than in thoroughbreds. It is certain that a breastplate, a thing commonly in use in England at that time to prevent the saddle from slipping, was never seen In America. Also, in the former country, a horse which would not carry his saddle without a crupper, would, have been considered fatally deficient ia form, while in America this was never considered a serious disadvantage. Another point in which the American horse of all conditions differs extremely and most advantageously from the European animal is his greater surefootedness and freedom from the dangerous and detestable vice of stumbling. It was only necessary to examine the knees of the hack horse let for hire, either in tho cities or rural villages of the United States, as compared to those of similar English localities, in the early period of which I write, to convince oneself that this was a real and not imaginary difference in favor of our horses. In this country a broken knee was one of the rarest blemishes, if not the rarest, one ever encountered in a horse. Of horses let for hire in England, unless it. be by a few crack livery keepers in London, in the universities and in one or two other of the most important towns in huntings neighborhoods, a majority were decidedly-broken-kneed. Nor was it at all unusual to meet perilous stumblers, even from gentle-; mens stables and in the case of animals whose appearance would indicate anything but liability to so manifest such a disqualify- ing fault I have had in my life several heavy falls on the road in England from my horse coming down with me on a trot, when, from the character of the horse, I should have expected anything else. It Is needless to add that the roads in Great Britain were, as a general thing, infinitely better, freer from ruts, stones and other obstacles, than those in the United States at the same period. In this country I have never had a horse stumble with me in harness, and but twice under the saddle, one of which was easily recovered, while the other, which fell out- right, was a notorious blunderer and, I think, the only broken-kneed horse I have met in America. To Be Continued.
