There was little leisure, and little money to be devoted to sport of any kind, and the horse and the dog existed in New England, at least, in varieties little suited to sport.
In the South it was somewhat different. A jockey-club was organized in Charleston, South Carolina, as early as 1735, and there was horse-racing in Maryland, Virginia, and other Southern states for years before the Revolution.
In New England, on the contrary, racing was strictly forbidden on moral and religious grounds. No such thing as a running-race could be tolerated by the Puritans of that section. As a consequence of this, we may trace the pedigree of the American trotting-horse straight to Archbishop Laud, who having infuriated the Puritans to the point of desiring emigration for themselves and their families to the new world, they founded New England.
The scandalous levity and apparently papal leanings of Charles and Laud were not to be permitted for a moment in their new home, and pretty much all amusements were frowned upon. But the Cromwellian love of a fast horse survived in some of his fellow-Puritans living in New England, and men trained to the theological hair-splitting of that day made a distinction between horses trotting in friendly competition between church-members and horses running for money prizes!
"Thou shalt not covet, but tradition
Approves all forms of competition."
Two horses trotting down the streets of Hingham, Massachusetts, and one, perhaps, going a little faster than the other, would hardly lead even the godly Rev. Ebenezer Gay to suppose that he was looking on at the beginnings of the sport of trotting-races, and that a mare called Goldsmith Maid would win for her owners over $200,000 between 1866 and 1878 at this same sport. Strangely as it may read, there is little doubt but that Puritan principles or prejudices, as you please, gave the impetus to the development of the trotting-horse. Horses used for racing had always run, but when it was discovered that horses could also be raced at a trot, those that showed speed at this gait were used to breed from, and pains were taken to develop their speeding qualities. Hence it is not flippant humor that traces the trotting-horse back to Laud.
"Fast Trotting.—Yesterday afternoon the Haerlem race-course of one mile distance, was trotted around in two minutes and fifty-nine seconds by a horse called Yankey, from New Haven; a rate of speed, it is believed, never before excelled in this country, and fully equal to anything recorded in the English sporting calendars."—From the Connecticut Journal, June 19, 1806.
The first trotting-match of which there is any authentic account was in 1818, when Boston Blue was produced to win the wager, that no horse could trot a mile in three minutes, and won it; what the amount was is not stated. From that time on, trotting horses against one another and against time became a popular amusement. In 1834, Andrew Jackson trotted a mile in 2 minutes 42½ seconds; in 1858, Ethan Allen trotted a mile in 2 minutes 28 seconds; in 1859, Flora Temple trotted a mile in 2 minutes 19¾ seconds; in 1874, Mambrino Gift lowered the record to 2 minutes and 20 seconds; in 1874, the famous Goldsmith Maid trotted a mile in 2 minutes and 14 seconds.
In 1843 there were only two horses that could trot a mile under 2 minutes and 30 seconds; while in 1881 there were over twelve hundred horses with records of 2 minutes 30 seconds or better.