The Horse of America in His Derivation, History, and Development

by John Hankins Wallace

In closing the account of this family—for out of courtesy we have called it a “family”—we find we have nothing left but a name with nothing in it. The name that was more widely known than that of any other horse of his generation has now practically ceased from the earth, with nobody so poor as to do it reverence.

The type of horse now known as the “Hackney” is found chiefly in the shires bordering the northeastern coast of England—Norfolk, Lincoln and Yorkshire. The name now given is not only new but it is appropriate and applies to any one part of England as well as another, and applies to any one horse, suited to the general use of a Hack, as well as another, no difference what his blood or what his country. The name “Norfolk Trotter” fifty or a hundred years ago was often applied to horses of this type coming from that part of the country, but it did not follow that they were “trotters.” In the discussions of the association preceding the adoption of a name it was urged that the qualifying word “trotter” would imply the ability to trot fast, and as the material to be registered could not do this, it would subject the whole movement to ridicule and contempt. It was also urged that the name “Norfolk” would give that particular region an advantage over all other parts of England in the prospective sales of registered stock, and thus the old title was fully disposed of. When the name “cob” was suggested, it was conceded that it represented just what they had, but it was too common, as everybody in all England, rich and poor, had “cobs.” Then came the term “Hackney,” which meant the same kind of a horse as the cob, but as it was not in such universal use it was adopted. On this point it must be admitted that it is an honest name.

The Hackney is a good horse for all the uses to which he is adapted. He is short on his legs and stout, with a good share of nervous energy. He is symmetrical, and, we might say, handsome, if we can use that word without any show of fine breeding, for he is far short of the ideal blood horse. But he is not a saddle horse, he is not a hunter, he is not a runner, and he is not a trotter. As against these desirable and useful qualifications, he has been bred and trained when in action to jerk up his limbs to the highest point anatomically possible, and put them down again with a thud at a point but little removed from where he started. In this showy, undesirable action he exhausts his nervous energy, pounding the earth without covering much of the distance. In this excessive knee action every element of easy, graceful and rapid progression is wanting. This fad will have its day and then along with the barbarous excision of the caudal appendage they will disappear together as they came, and we will know them no more forever.

There are two points in advocating the merits of the Hackney with which every Englishman is thoroughly familiar and which he will call to your attention on the slightest provocation: (1) Bellfounder was a Hackney and it was his blood that gave us the greatest trotting sire that the world has ever produced. This is the Englishman’s estimate of Bellfounder when he has a Hackney for sale, and especially if the prospective purchaser be an American. (2) He is descended from a long line of distinguished trotters. To the first of these reiterated and parrot-like claims an answer will be found in the chapter relating to that horse, where his twenty-one years of stud service have been carefully considered, and where he is shown to have been a monumental failure. In the second claim there is some truth and we must consider it very briefly.

Of all the elements entering into the families of horses locally and indefinitely called Norfolk Trotters, there were two that might be looked upon as the founders—Useful Cub and Shales—for they were more conspicuous and valuable than any others. Mr. John Lawrence was not only a practical horseman, but he was the most intelligent and reliable of all the writers on the horse in the latter part of the last century. He was the only one who gave any attention to the trotter and trotting affairs. He says: “To old Shales and Useful Cub the Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk are indebted for their fame in the production of capital Hackneys.” Useful Cub was bred by Thomas Jenkinson, of Long Sutton in Lincolnshire, and was foaled about 1865-70, and was got by a Suffolk cart horse, doubtless a light weight, and his dam was by Golden Farmer, a son of the famous half-bred Sampson, that was the great-grandsire of Messenger and beat most of the best horses of his day. Mr. Lawrence knew Useful Cub well, and was beaten by him in Hyde Park. We have no details of this horse’s performances, but it seems to be conceded that he trotted fifteen, sixteen and seventeen miles in the hour. Old Shales, or Scott’s Shales, as he is sometimes called, is described by Lawrence as “the bastard son of Blank,” son of Godolphin Arabian, but Mr. Euren, the compiler of the Hackney Stud Book maintains that he was the son of Blaze and not the son of Blank. The reasons given for this change I do not remember, but they would have to be well founded before I could throw overboard the contemporaneous evidence of Mr. Lawrence. It will not do to say that Mr. Lawrence mistook the name Blaze for Blank and so wrote it by mistake, for he knew all about both horses. This distinction, however, is of but little practical value. The horses Shales and Useful Cub were both fast and successful trotters, in their day, and they both became distinguished sires of trotters. By this I do not mean that they were the sires of all the trotters, for there were many that were wholly unknown in their breeding.

Judging from the numbers of leading contests that were reported in the Sporting Magazine and other publications, we must conclude that trotting contests reached their height as well in numbers as in public interest about the last decade in the last century. The contests were all to saddle, on the road, and the leading ones were made under the watch and over a long distance of ground, specifying such or such a distance to be made inside of an hour. To form a correct estimate of the speed of those horses, I will copy one paragraph, entire, from the description given by Mr. Lawrence concerning his own mare Betty Bloss:

“My own brown mare, known by the name of Betty Bloss, was the slowest of all the capital trotters, but at five years old trotted fifteen miles in one hour, carrying fourteen stone, although fairly mistress of no more than ten. She afterward trotted sixteen miles within the hour, with ten stone, with much ease to herself and her rider. She was nearly broken down at four years old, had bad feet, and, besides, too much blood for a trotter, having been got by Sir Hale’s Commoner, out of a three-part-bred daughter of Rattle, son of Snip.”

In this paragraph, from the best-informed man of his generation, it will be noted incidentally that the cry, “no more running blood in the trotter,” is not new, but more than a hundred years old. The best performances were about sixteen miles in the hour, but there was an occasional one that reached sixteen and a half. A black gelding called Archer was recognized as the fastest of that period, and on one occasion under a stop watch he trotted the second one of two miles in a little less than three minutes. From my gleanings I find but a single instance from which we might be able to approximate the money value of trotting horses of that day, and this is given as a phenomenal price, viz., Marshland Shales, a paternal grandson of the original Shales and out of a mare by Hue and Cry. He had beaten Reed’s Driver in a match of seventeen miles for 200 guineas. He was foaled 1802 and in 1812 he was sold at auction for 3,051 guineas—$15,255. He was a great horse, but this price was just as startling to Englishmen of that day as the $105,000 was in our own day, when Axtell was sold. This seems to have been the culmination of the “boom” in Norfolk Trotters, and from then till the present there has been a steady deterioration in the trotting step of the Norfolk horse. In the earlier part of this period of eighty or ninety years, possibly some exceptions may be found, but they are only individual exceptions and do not controvert the broad fact that must be apparent to all observers. They had been breeding and training their horses to strike their chins with their knees—the up-and-down motion—instead of getting away and covering some ground in their action. I have stood and watched scores of them in the show-ring, on their native heath, with their grooms at the ends of long lines running and yelling like wild Indians to rouse up their horses, and they called this training the trotters. When I privately expressed the wish that saddles might be put on a few of the best and the ring cleared so that the trotting action might be studied, I was very kindly and politely assured that they did not show their trotters that way in England. Thus with the taut check-rein, the long leading-line and the whoops of the groom they got the up-and-down action upon the perfection of which the prizes were awarded. This explained why the splendid foundation of a breed had been lost by non-use and why England had produced no trotters in the past fifty or eighty years.

While our English cousins know they have no trotting horses of their own they seem to be exceedingly anxious, possibly for commercial reasons, to make it appear that the American trotting horse is the lineal descendant of the Norfolk Trotter. This effort is not restricted to the idle twaddle about Bellfounder, which everybody on this side of the Atlantic estimates at its true value, but it has taken an official and wider range, which, trifling though it be, my duty as a historian impels me to expose. Mr. Henry P. Euren, the compiler of the Hackney Stud Book, wrote to the Commissioner of Agriculture, at Washington, D. C., in 1888, taking exceptions to some conclusions reached in an article written by Mr. Leslie E. Macleod, in my office, on “The National Horse of America,” and published in the report of the Department of Agriculture for 1887; Mr. Euren claiming that the American trotting horse came originally from Norfolk, in England. In proof of this he says: “I beg to inclose you a cutting which confirms my idea.” And now for the “cutting” which he offers as proof:

“It appears from an Act of Parliament, passed December 6, 1748, in the Legislature of the State of New Jersey, America, that on and after the publication of this Act, all Norfolk pacing or trotting of horses for lucre or gain, or for any sum or sums of money at any time (excepting such times as are hereafter expressly provided for by this Act), shall be and are hereby declared public nuisances, provided always that at all fairs that are or may be held within this province, and that on the first working day after the three great festivals of Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide, etc., etc.”