A History of the Hals
By John Trotwood Moore
CHAPTER III.
THE ORIGIN OF THE PACER.
Dar cum er tur’bul freshet up on Bigby Creek one year
An’ old Marse Noah ’lowed de moon was hangin’ mighty queer,
An’ if it didn’t change its chune an’ get up on its horn
Dar was gwineter be a freshet jes’ es sho’ es you was born!
Sho’ ’nuff it tuck to rainin’ an’ it kivered all de groun’,
An’ de crick it got to risin’ an’ er spreadin’ all erroun’
Till it crip up in the stable whar de ole gray mule wus stayin’
An’ skeered ’im so he jined de church an’ got right down to prayin’.
But dat didn’t stop de freshet, Nachur’ bleeves in er variety—
An’ de good Lord He don’t bank much on dis ober-sudden piety—
So He made it rain de harder—O He was mad es pizen’—
For de rain it kep’ er fallin’ an’ de crick it kep’ er risin’!
Sed de mule onto de yudder stock: “Dear frien’s, you all am sinners,
Better think mo ’bout yore mortal souls an’ less erbout yo’ dinners!
’Tis cla’r to my min’ sum ob you dun clean furgot yo’ raisin’
Er follerin’ arter idul gods—or mebbe chicken chasin’!
Dar’s Tom Hal and de Donk’y jes es wurldly es kin be, sah!
Dar’s jes’ one virchus man heah and its plain dat man am me, sah!
You kno’ yo’selves I’ve nurver had no meannes’ to attone fur,
I goes by whut de good book sez an’ nurver throws a stone, sah!”
He skeered ’em so he got ’em all to start up a camp meetin’,
An’ sech er crowd you nurver seed a wailin’ an’ a weepin’,
But dat didn’t stop de freshet—O de Lord was mad es pizen—
An’ de rain it kep’ er fallin’ an’ de crick it kep’ er risin’!
Den de ’possum cum frum out de woods, de coon from out de holler,
De ba’r frum out de canebrake an’ de horg frum out de waller,
De Speckled Bull, de Billy Goat—dey all cum in a hurry—
An’ got religion den an’ dar, for all ob ’em wus skurry!
So de mule he babtize ebry one—ebry son an darter—
“Salvation it am free,” he sed—“an’ dars no eend to water!”
Den Brudder Hal pass ’roun de hat to bild de Lord a fence, suh!
De Donk’y jine de church choir an’ bin in it eber sense, suh!
De bull dey make de Eunuck of—de Billy Goat de elder—
To hold de sister when she shout—an’ Billy he has held ’er!
But dat didn’t stop de freshet—O, de Lord wus mad as pizen—
An’ de rain it kep’ er fallin’ an’ de crick it kep’ er risin’!
Den sed de mule, es up he riz from prayer, an’ Satan tussle:
“Dar’s sech a thing es savin’ grace, an’ sech a thing as hustle!
It’s plain we’ve missed de track ob good Ole Marster’s secret wishes,
An’ if we all don’t bild er ark we’ll soon be food for fishes!”
So dey bilt er ark ob gopher-wood—de mule dey ’lected Noah—
Becase he tell ’em years ago he was in de ark befoah.
An’ dey bilt it strong an’ snug an’ tight—de crick it kep’ er risin’—
To hold ’em all dat creep or crawl—from de snake onto de bisin!
An’ den dey all chip in dey grub—de mule a bar’l ob brandy—
An’ wink his eye an’ laf an’ say: “Dese snakes cum mighty handy!”
But dat didn’t stop de freshet—O, de Lord wus mad as pizen—
An’ de rain it kep’ er fallin’, an’ de crick it kep’ er risin’!
Den de mule he float de ark out near de hill dey all wus founded,
An’ tell ’em all to swim for it or stay dar an’ git drownded!
“An’ lem me tell you now, my friends, I want no half-way racin’—
Dar’s jes’ one way for you to swim, an’ dat’s to swim a-pacin’.”
An’ den dey all struck Nachur’s gait—de snake led de processhun!
De coon, de b’ar, de eliphunt—dey swum like all possesshun!
All but Tom Hal, he stood an’ snort so sassy like an’ plucky,
An’ swore he wouldn’t pace at all—dat he cum frum Kentucky.
But when de water riz up an’ he see dat bar’l ob brandy
He bust de record gittin’ dar—an’ dun it mighty handy!
An’ when Ole Marster seed de gait, an’ dat dey all hed dun it,
He let ’em all go back to earth an’ live and breed upon it.
So dey all went back er pacin’, frum de bug unto de bisin,
An’ de rain it quit a-fallin’, and de crick it quit er risin’!
—OLE WASH.
It will be news to many of my readers when I tell them that the pacing gait is the oldest and most natural gait of the horse, and that the old pacer was the thoroughbred of antiquity, the companion of kings, the warhorse of mighty warriors, the animal that carried on his back the daughters of Pharaoh and the princesses of Babylon. And yet, when this gait began to outcrop among the trotters, making that grand type of the racehorse known as “trotting-bred pacers,” hundreds of people have been wondering “Where did it come from?” Let us see from whence it came:
There is no real difference in form between the trotter and the pacer. The theory of “structural incongruity” will do to talk about, but as a matter of fact there is no such thing, and a pacer paces and a trotter trots, not from his shape, but his head—his instinct.
When the curtain went up on antiquity, horses were pacing. They paced because it was the natural gait of the animal, the trot of later years being the artificial gait. We know that the horses of the ancients were small—pacing ponies—and the running horse was not developed until centuries after.
The oldest civilizations of which we have any record of the horse are the Egyptian and the Babylonian. On the tombs the horse was always carved pacing. The frieze of the Parthenon was the work of the great artist Phidias. His horses were pacers. Five hundred years before the Christian era the great sculptors of Greece and Rome put some of their greatest work into statues of horses—all pacers. Relics of some of the very earliest Greek friezes are still preserved in the British Museum and show the horses to be pacing. At the beginning of the Christian era the Romans had conquered the Britons and the horses they found there, or carried there, they called “ambulatores”—amblers—and during the five hundred years that Rome ruled the island these horses were the favorites for the saddle and light driving. In 1215 A.D. the barons wrenched from King John the famous Magna Charta, the great seal of which is a knight in armor, mounted on a pacing horse. In a previous chapter we have told how Sir Walter Scott describes them and how for centuries the pacing horse—the ambler—the jennet, was the favorite, if not the only saddle horse of the knights and ladies and the nobility.
Could such a horse have been a scrub? For many years there has lived in England a wealthy American who is an artist and a fond lover of horses—Mr. Walter Winans. I am indebted to Mr. Winans for many valuable discoveries about the pacer, the first of them being his letter and illustrations showing the original drawings from the Egyptian tombs, these carvings being copied by Mr. Winans while studying ancient Egyptian sculpture.
Some years ago, Mr. Walter Winans, of Brighton, England, sent me sketches of bas-reliefs taken from Egyptian tombs. While never having had before the pleasure of seeing a cut of the bas-reliefs sent to the writer by Mr. Winans, I have known of their existence and have repeatedly called attention to the fact that the past history of the pacer demonstrated beyond a doubt that he was a horse of the noblest blood, the war-horse of ancient battles, the companion of ancient kings and princes. The fact that he has been able to do what he has done is convincing proof of a past greatness somewhere in his breeding—a scrub would have died at the wire long ago. If “society” is looking for something that is blue-blooded, with a hoariness that no other blue-blooded can boast of; that is eminently respectable to a degree bordering on classical mythiness; that is more ancient than the pyramids and more respectable in lineage than the longest pedigree of Norman knight, I respectfully refer it to the pacer. My only regret in the matter is that the recognition, by “society,” of distinguished lineage, illustrious achievements and present worth cannot be a subject of mutual acknowledgment and congratulation.
Brighton, Eng., Jan. 23.
Dear Trotwood: I have brought the pacer to more than four thousand years ago. Prof. J. E. Marey, Professor of the College of France, has just published a book called “Le Movement,” dealing with the correct drawings of men and animals in motion. He gives two engravings, of which I enclose pen copies, one of them from an Assyrian bas relief, the original of which is in London, England, British Museum; the other is a copy of an ancient Egyptian Bas-relief at Medynet-Abou, in Egypt. They both represent horses pacing. Prof. Marey says (freely translated from the French). “Examples of a pacing gait are here accurately represented. It is of all gaits the easiest to observe, and therefore to draw, on account of the symmetry of movement.... Trotting, which is so often represented in modern works, seems rarely to figure in that of the ancients.”
I noticed lately in one of your contemporaries, which goes in for “society,” a suggestion that pacing races should not be held on days that trotting is indulged in, so as not to offend road riders (a long list of which it gives), who dislike to see a pacer. It is a good thing that these road riders did not live four thousand years ago, or they would have been shocked to see all the rulers and great men of Assyria and Egypt driving pacers. The ancient Romans called trotters “tormentores,” on account of the way they shook them up, riding without stirrups.
Referring to the pictures again, the reason the figures holding the symbols of authority (the half-circles) and the groom at the horses’ heads being so small, is because that in ancient Egyptian conventional art figures were not drawn in their proper proportions, but large or small, according to the importance of the person represented.
The Assyrian pacer looks as if he must be the champion stallion of the period.
Yours truly,
WALTER WINANS.
I agree fully with Mr. Winans concerning the form of the Assyrian pacer above. Fewer can show up today with a finer turned muzzle, face and neck, or show more strength, beauty and symmetry in form than the one in the outline above. Concerning the cobwebbed suggestion of the “society” paper about pacers being barred the track on trotting days, I beg to assure the author of the above letter that the brilliant idea died a-borning. There is plenty of brains and progressive spirit yet left among the managers of American trotting associations, and these gentlemen prefer rather to increase than to diminish the interest in the light harness horse. The pacer and the trotter are indissolubly linked together—in interest, destiny and blood. They have, too, much of the same breeding, too many kindred ties. Joined, as they are, by so many common ancestors, united as they are by so many great horses, no number of society asses can now pull them asunder.
In discussing this subject later, Mr. Winans wrote:
“There is one difference between a trotter and a pacer which I can show in sculpture, which has never been shown before by any artists, as painters cannot show it. I mean the upright, locomotive-like progression of a trotter and the side stride of the pacer. In a picture the difference of the gaits can only be shown by the position of the legs. In sculpture we can show how a trotter puts down his feet on each side of the imaginary line drawn on the ground straight under him, in the direction he is going, as the following illustration will show.
“But this is not true with the pacer. On the contrary, he puts his feet right on the line, as the following diagram will show:
“I can better explain myself by the following: If I model a horse standing still, and then cut off the two left side legs and model fresh ones in the act of being lifted up, so as to represent one position of the pace, I would have to push or bend the body of the horse over to the left till a plumb line from the center of his body would hang down to touch a line drawn on the ground from his two feet touching the ground, but if I wanted to make a trotter from the same model of a standing horse, I could make the fresh legs without having to bend over the body to either side.
“It is curious that the bronze statuettes of the pacer would not stand firm unless I bent the body over, which shows that nature knows just how to place animals so that the center of gravity should be right. Horses in the instantaneous photograph positions balance on their legs, but if I model in the conventional position of the run, I have to put a prop under the bronze horse’s belly, like most artists do.”
The subject of the proper balancing of harness horses is generally recognized as one of the most important in the business, and it is highly probable that more otherwise good drivers fail there, in the proper management of their horses, than in any other thing. Properly balanced, the battle is half over in the training of a naturally speedy horse.
The idea suggested in the letter above, if true, as it undoubtedly appears to be, naturally suggests that a very different system should be adopted in the proper balancing of pacers and trotters. It is impossible, of course, to tell how much the individuality of each horse would assert itself in attaining the ends sought in this direction, but so far as the mere matter of avoirdupois is concerned, it will be seen that on general principles the pacer, on account of moving a rear and fore foot at the same time, can come nearer having both shoes on those feet equal, than the trotter, where the aim should be to equalize the alternate feet.
It is very plain the balancing required for one will not do for the other, and horsemen who think they know all about a pacer from successful handling of trotters will find out their error. For my own part, I believe it requires less skill to balance a pacer than a trotter, for the reason that, because of his simple action he can come nearer wearing the same weight on all feet than any other horse. As proof of this I have only to refer my readers to the fact that nearly all the very fast pacers carry but little weight, equally distributed, and require little protection.
This correspondent has placed us under additional obligations by enclosing us a pen drawing, executed by himself, on a trip into Northern Russia, which we reproduce below, and which he calls “a typical pacer from Finland, Russia, used by the peasants for farm work, fourteen hands high.” As Finland is in the northern part of Russia, beyond the latitude where the native horses of any country grow much higher than fourteen hands, the height is not to be wondered at; and as the peasants of Finland are of the poorer classes the natural inference is that the pacer is a natural product of northern Europe, and, no doubt, may be found in their native state in many, if not all, of these countries, such as Siberia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, The Netherlands, and even North Germany.
A Typical Pacer from Finland, Russia. Used by the Peasants for Farm Work—14 Hands High.
“There is no native trotter in England,” writes Mr. Winans. “That is to say, there is no breed of horse that can beat the very low standard of 3:30. The so-called Norfolk trotter is too slow and is never used for racing purposes in England. To supply this dearth of trotters, they had to import from Russia and the United States. Now, a fast trotter from the States costs more than the class of men who go in for trotting in England cared to pay, so pacers, which could go in three minutes or a little better, were got over instead, and as the difference between trotting and pacing is not understood in England, they got to be called trotters, and raced as trotters. As a proof of their not understanding pacers, a big dealer in horses saw a friend of the writer’s driving an American pacer and said, ‘There, that is what I call trotting in good form!’ The other country the English import trotters from is Russia. Now, in Russia there are two sorts of trotters, the ordinary Orloff carriage horse, which can go close to three minutes, if a good one, and the racing Orloff trotter, which can go up to about 2:20. Now, the latter are too expensive, so the ordinary Orloff carriage horses were imported. It was soon found that they were not fast enough to have any chance even against very poor American pacers, so the American pacer became the trotter of England. This refers to the high class, or what corresponds to the free-for-all trots. There is another lower-down class of trotting which is by far the most common in England. The races, or generally matches, take place on the road, and the police (it is forbidden to race on the roads) often put a stop to the races, and they have to be arranged discreetly. The matches are announced on some such lines: ‘Mr. So-and-So’s pony, Tommy, matched for $25 to trot two miles on the So-and-So road against Mr. So-and-So’s pony, Billy.’
“By the way, till quite lately a trotter in England was always a pony; they did not talk of trotting horses, but trotting ponies. For this class of racing the ponies are some 12½ to 14½ hands high and driven to very heavy, old-fashioned sulkies. The ponies used are not English-bred, but what are called in England ‘Russian’ ponies. They are not really Russian, but come from Finland. These ‘Finnish’ ponies are a distinct breed. They are on an average 14½ hands high or under, strongly built, with thick, short necks, very good feet and legs, bushy tails, and very hard mouths. They are generally all shades of sorrel, dun or chestnut, many with donkey marks down the back, and light-colored manes and tails, and they are for the most part natural pacers. These are the horses that are used in St. Petersburg for the public droshkies which ply for hire and are very cheap. Some can go close to three minutes, with an occasional one close to 2:40, and are imported wholesale into England for light tradesmen’s use. In Russia they are also used by the peasants for farm work.
“The Orloff trotter is quite free from pacing. The many I have driven have never showed the least sign of pacing, with one single exception; this horse was not one of the racing Orloffs, but one of an ordinary carriage pair. I think he had a cross of the ‘Fin’ pony, by his shape. He used to pace when jogging, but I never tried to get any speed at the pace out of him.
“The little ‘Fin’ ponies are very fast occasionally for their size. As an instance, we had a black pair of Orloffs when I was last in St. Petersburg, which used to pass everything on the road. It is the custom there, when you have fast horses, to brush with anything you meet. One day a victoria, drawn by two little dun-colored ‘Fin’ ponies, with some ladies in it, came along. We turned out to pass them and they ran right away from us, which no big pair had been able to do all the summer. This particular pair trotted, but as I said before, most of them are pacers, and these are what race in the minor races in England as ‘trotting ponies.’”
The conclusion is evident—the pace is the natural and probably the first fast gait of the horse.
(To Be Continued.)