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

by John Hankins Wallace

CHAPTER XXXII.
HOW THE TROTTING HORSE IS BRED (Continued).

Trotting speed first supposed to be an accident—Then, that it came from the runner—William Wheelan’s views—Test of powers of endurance—The term “thoroughbred” much abused—Definition of “thoroughbred”—How trotters may be made “thoroughly bred”—How to study pedigrees—Reward offered for the production of a thoroughbred horse that was a natural pacer—The trotter more lasting than the runner—The dam of Palo Alto—Arion as a two-year-old—Only three stallions have been able to get trotters from running-bred mares—“Structural incongruity”—The pacer and trotter inseparable—How to save the trot and reduce the ratio of pacers—Development a necessity—Table proving this proposition—The “tin cup” policy a failure—Woodburn at the wrong end of the procession.

Before the question of speed in the trotter began to be considered, either from a historical or a philosophical standpoint, or, in other words, a question involving scientific truths, there was a universal concurrence in the idea that speed at the trot was an accident and that there was nothing of inheritance or heredity about it. This idea was greatly strengthened by the performances of such horses as Boston Horse, Rattler, Edwin Forrest, Dutchman, Confidence, Moscow, Pelham, Flora Temple, Tacony, etc., whose origin and blood were wholly unknown, while they were on the turf. Contemporaneous with these there were such splendid performers as Topgallant, Screwdriver, Lady Suffolk, Sally Miller, O’Blennis and many others that were known to be descended from Messenger, a horse that was looked upon by everybody as a “thoroughbred.” Hence, the conclusion that the flying trotter was either an accident in breeding, or his speed qualities came from the English running horse. The fact that such champion trotters, in their day, as Pelham, Highland Maid, etc., had originally been pacers and changed from the lateral to the diagonal gait was sedulously concealed from the public, during their day, and only after they had passed away was this bar-sinister in their origin brought to light. Doubtless this same fact might have been developed in the origin of Edwin Forrest and others, if action had been taken in time. In that day—say the first half of this century—it is not remarkable that the plebeian origin of some of our most famous early trotters was concealed, for everybody was claiming a thoroughbred ancestry, and the more famous the performer the more certain he was to be furnished with a thoroughbred pedigree.

“Whatever is of value in the trotter must come from the runner, and whatever is of value in the runner must come from the Arab,” was the view that was universally accepted when I was a boy. And yet there were thousands of fast trotters and fast pacers in this country long before the first running horse was brought from England, and England itself was abundantly supplied with horses several hundred years before there was a horse in Arabia. These two facts are historical, and the dates make them incontrovertible. Some forty or fifty years ago William Wheelan, a successful trainer and driver of trotting horses in this country, took some trotters over to England, to try his “luck,” as others had done before him, in making matches and winning stakes. He was quite successful, and when he came home he was kept busy answering questions about English horses and why they did not have more trotters there. He replied that “there were plenty of horses that could trot as well or better than our American horses, if they were trained; they had plenty of blood and most of them good limbs and feet, with all the substance that was needed.” This made William Wheelan an authority, and his opinion was quoted all over the land; which went to prove that the way to breed the trotter was to get plenty of running blood into his veins. About this time the English running horse Trustee was bred on a famous trotting mare, Fanny Pullen, a daughter of Winthrop Messenger, of Maine, and the produce was the gelding Trustee, the first to trot twenty miles within the hour, or at least the first to make that distance regularly and to rule. This gave a tremendous “boost” to running blood, as everybody except Hiram Woodruff ascribed the result to the great powers of the imported running horse. All subsequent experiences fully demonstrated that Hiram Woodruff, although alone, was right; for although Trustee’s blood commingled more kindly with trotting blood than most of the other running horses, he left no trotters but this one. The highest rate of speed of which this gelding was capable was about 2:40, and at last, in a race of mile heats with some fifth-rate old pelter, at Cincinnati, Ohio, on a very hot day, he fell exhausted on the track and died from the effects of the heat. But the great fame of being the only horse able to trot twenty miles within the hour did not long remain with this son of imported Trustee. Five others have done the same thing, viz., Captain Magowan, Controller, John Stewart, Mattie Howard, and Lady Fulton, all of whom went faster than Trustee, except Lady Fulton.

There have been many crucial tests of the “staying qualities” of running blood in the trotter, as against the trotter without any running blood, in which the running blood has uniformly been worsted. The last of these which I now recall was a match for two thousand dollars between Scotland, a half-bred son of imported Bonnie Scotland, and Lizzie M., by Thomas Jefferson, and out of a pacing mare. The race was two-mile heats, best three in five—a very unusual race, and admirably adapted to test the staying powers of the contestants. Scotland was a fast and well-seasoned trotter; while the mare had, probably, a little higher flight of speed she never had been tried at such a distance, and in her breeding she was short, and had not a single drop of running blood in her inheritance. The mare won the first and second heats in 4:56—5:03, and the gelding the third heat in 4:55½, the fastest in the race, but he was not able to come again, and the last heat was won by the mare in 4:58½. This race took place at Philadelphia in 1883, and if, at that time, there still remained any advocates of “more running blood in the trotter,” they have not since been in evidence, with two or three addle-pated exceptions.

In looking back over the many years I have devoted to the literature of the horse, and especially to the breeding of the trotting horse, I can find no word in the English language that has been so much abused as the word “thoroughbred.” A minister wrote a great, pretentious book on the horse in which he maintained that the Morgan horse was a “thoroughbred.” A lawyer wrote another pretentious book in which he maintained that the trotting horse Dexter was a “thoroughbred.” With these two shining lights in the learned professions writing books on the horse and pronouncing this family or that individual “thoroughbred” without knowing the meaning of the term, we should not deal too severely with uneducated men for following their example. The minister and the lawyer evidently had always heard the term “thoroughbred” applied to what men considered the best, and when they were discussing their favorites which they considered the best, they naturally called them “thoroughbreds” without knowing what they were saying. This was more than twenty years ago, and was really the popular conception of the meaning of the term at that time. Not one man in a thousand then knew that the term had any other meaning than the individual superiority of the animal, and that it applied only to the pedigree, or concentration of blood in the veins of the animal, was quite foreign to the popular conception. After the founding of Wallace’s Monthly the light began to dawn on this as well as on many other questions, and to-day the true meaning of the term is very generally understood.

To constitute a “thoroughbred” of whatever variety or species the animal must possess a certain number of uncontaminated crosses of his own breed, and this applies to all kinds of domestic animals that are bred for special uses or qualities. There is no law determining the number of these uncontaminated crosses, except the law of usage. The cattle men, I think, were the first to establish a rule on this subject, in this country, and they did it on enlightened and scientific principles. It was found in experience that the danger of atavism, or throwing back to some undesirable ancestor, was diminished in the ratio of the number of pure crosses through which the animal was descended. At two crosses it was found that there were many reversions to some type outside of the breed; at three crosses there were not so many; at four there were very few, and at five reversions had practically disappeared. While some required another cross the majority drove the stake at the fifth generation, proclaiming thereby that an animal bred through five uncontaminated generations of ancestors was free from the dangers of reversion, and hence was “thoroughly bred.” This is the formula and this is the principle, and it applies with equal propriety to the colt, the calf, the pig, the puppy, the chick, or the birdling. In this phrase “thoroughly bred” we have the origin, reason and meaning of the term “thoroughbred.” The formula of this rule, if tabulated, would show two parents: next, four grandparents; next eight great-grandparents; next sixteen ancestors and next thirty-two, making in all sixty-two ancestors, all of which must be “thoroughly bred.” This rule of breeding is not limited to the running horse alone, but applies to all the varieties of our domestic animals; and whenever the point is reached at which the danger of reversion has been overcome the animal is “thoroughly bred,” and the term “thoroughbred” applied just as properly to one kind of domestic animal as to another.

The question here arises as to whether the American Trotting Horse can be so thoroughly bred as to be entitled to be ranked as a thoroughbred trotter? This question is already affirmatively answered when we say the rule “applies to all the varieties of our domestic animals.” This is the general fact, but the trotting horse has a qualification, already determined, that serves as a fixed starting point in giving him rank. The standard as originally adopted and honestly administered was the mighty engine that wrought the revolution in breeding the trotter. It fixed a certain qualification that had to be complied with before an animal could be admitted to standard rank, and that qualification was in brief to either perform or produce a performer that could cover a mile in 2:30. It excluded no strains of blood, but it admitted the animals only that had fully demonstrated the ability to trot or to produce trotters. The standard is now antiquated, and far behind the speed of the trotters, which is a clear demonstration of the wisdom of its construction and adoption, but to this topic I will refer at another place more at length. With the standard, then, and the unmistakable evidence it furnished of the possession of what we will call “trotting blood,” we have a more definite and satisfactory starting point than can be claimed for any kind or variety of domestic animal. With this demonstrated ability to trot fully established, we can commence to count the generations of standard animals in a trotting pedigree, and if we find five generations of ancestors, with every animal standard bred, we can safely and intelligently say the animal is “thoroughly bred” as a trotting horse. With those sixty-two progenitors all legally established as standard animals, who will say this is not a thoroughbred trotting horse? He is not only thoroughbred, but he is more distinctly and completely thoroughbred than any other domestic animal, because the fifth generation of his ancestors, and the fourth and the third and the second and the first have all proved that they are either trotters or the producers of trotters. No other breed has ever been established on so good a foundation, for they have fairly won their initial honors by what they have done. But this is one degree higher and embraces one generation more than the formula usually prescribed as necessary to constitute the rank of thoroughbred. Five “generations of ancestors” do not include the representative product of those generations. The product would be the sixth generation, which is one more than the generally accepted usage requires. An animal representing five generations of standard trotting blood, complete and without contamination, is “thoroughly bred” and is justly entitled to be classified as a “thoroughbred trotting horse.” At this point of breeding it is considered that the danger of reversion is practically eliminated, and hence this distinctive classification. At the time of this writing (1897) there should be, in this country, quite a number of youngsters fully entitled to rank as thoroughbreds.

All intelligent breeders have long been aiming at this point, not merely for the name “thoroughbred,” but for the greater certainty of uniformity in producing what they want—the ability to perform; and the quality of these thoroughbred trotters must be determined by the ability to perform and the quality of each and every one of the ancestors. If each and every one of the four or five generations of ancestors was able to go out and win himself or herself, there could hardly be a doubt that the colt could do the same, but some of those ancestors may be in the standard merely from reflected honors, which are good, but not a crucial test of superiority in the individual. There is nothing like the animal that “has gone out and done it” himself, over and over again, and when we sit down to the study and comparison of pedigrees in the thoroughbred rank we find great differences in the quality of the lines of descent. The reflected honors of an uncle or an aunt are of much less value than the honor of a direct ancestor. While the blood of all the ancestors is tested blood, the individuals may not all have been tested, and hence are less certain in transmitting the true trotting instinct. While the standard has done wonders in teaching the true art of breeding, like all other human devices it has its imperfections. Just like the runner, the trotter may be strictly thoroughbred, and yet in taking after some of the imperfections of one or more of his ancestors, he may be of but little value as a performer. This truth has been verified in a thousand experiences in the runner, and it is just as liable to be verified in the trotter. Hence the supreme importance of looking well to the qualities and capacities of every animal in the inheritance.