Racing was early brought over to this country, and was common in the South in the times of the colonies. It is still kept up. The trotting horse has been developed in the United States until now we have the best trotters in the world. In the British islands, as you may know, the racing horses are made to run, or gallop, quite a different pace from the trot.
The trotting horses of this country began with a fine English horse named Messenger, born in 1780, of Arabian stock. In 1806 it was thought splendid when a horse trotted a mile in 2.50 (2 minutes and 50 seconds). There are now trotting horses which can make a mile in less than 2 minutes. Running is a faster pace and a mile can be made in less time, but Americans like trotting better.
Shall I say something about the use of the horse in hunting? This has long been a common sport in England and Ireland, much more so than in this country. The owners of large estates in the British islands often keep large packs of hounds, trained to chase the fox or the deer, and known as fox-hounds and deer-hounds. Their stables are also filled with horses, trained to run at full speed over rough country and jump high fences and wide ditches.
The hunting of deer and hares is an old form of sport, centuries old, but now fox-hunting is liked better, and great care is taken to protect the foxes for the use of the hunters. Fox-hunting is very hard work for horses and only a good horse can be used as often as twice a week in a fox-chase. There is a story of a deer hunt by the king's hounds and horses where the chase was kept up nearly five hours over wild country. It was so hard on horses and men that many of the riders had to give up, two horses died in the field and seven others during the week. A run of this length over rough ground, with all sorts of obstacles in the way, will kill or badly injure the strongest horse.
Trained hunters can do wonderful feats of jumping over fences and ditches, but this leads to many accidents, and the injury or death of horse or rider in the hunting field often takes place.
Virginia Deer
WAR-HORSE AND WORKING-HORSE
In far past times the horse was used in war far more than in our days. Men can now kill one another fast enough without the use of horses, but large numbers are still used in the army, to haul wagons and guns and for those who fight on horseback. In ancient days no saddle was used, soldiers riding their horses bareback, though the great men of the armies rode in war-chariots. The old Roman horsemen did not use bits or bridles, but guided their horses by a headband which pressed on the nose, the reins being fastened to rings on this band. In later Roman times the saddle was used, but the Germans they fought with still rode bareback or used the skin of an animal for a saddle. They did not use stirrups. It was the same with the great Tartar riders, who came from the steppes of Asia and conquered great part of Europe and Asia.