Still the knowledge, the caution, the system that made it almost impossible in the last years of Mr. Wallace’s administration to impose a fraud upon the “Register” were of slow, gradual, but constant growth. The work improved with every volume, with every year of experience, and the evidence that would be accepted in the compilation of the early volumes would not suffice later. Mr. Wallace had also the quality of just as remorselessly overthrowing his own errors as those of others, and thus a system of correction was continually going along, in which work Wallace’s Monthly, founded in 1875, was a particularly effective agency.
The first volume of the “Trotting Register” was published in 1871, and was a neat book of 504 pages. It contained, besides the pedigrees gathered, tables of all trotting and pacing performances up to the close of 1870, and this was the first time in which the records of the trotting turf were collected and published. This part of the work entailed a vast amount of research, including a thorough review of all sporting papers, annuals and other sources where contemporaneous record of racing would be liable to be made, but it was a very valuable feature; and, besides serving as a basis for Mr. Wallace’s future compilations, was unscrupulously seized upon by imitators who, from time to time, sought to publish “record books.”
There was also an introduction to the volume entitled, “An Essay on the True Origin of the American Trotter,” which showed a glimmering of understanding of the truths of history and of breeding as now understood by students well grounded in the subject. In the second volume, however, was an essay that marks an epoch in the literature of breeding. Written less than three years after the introduction to Volume I., it betrays the fact that in the intervening years the author had risen suddenly and broadened infinitely in his study of the science of breeding, and his understanding of the application thereto of the facts of trotting history. It advanced then entirely new views, and it was the first article published, as far as the writer is aware, that rose to an appreciation of the supremacy of biological laws in horse breeding, and suggested such a thing as psychical heredity in the transmission of habits of action. It originated the term “trotting instinct,” so generally used thereafter, began the discussion of the problem of the increasing number of fast trotters from pacing ancestors, and wound up with ten sound propositions or conclusions based throughout on the law that like begets like. It opened up new and endless lines of investigation and thought, and at once elevated the discussion to a scientific plane. This article, written by Mr. Wallace originally for the Spirit of the Times, marked the advent of the school of thought on breeding now almost universal.
The second volume of the “Register” was published in 1874, and the third in 1879. The first three volumes of the “Register” contained about 10,000 pedigrees, and the statistical tables in the second and third volumes were greatly improved and amplified over those in the first. Volume II. gave a table of sires of 2:30 horses, with the number to the credit of each sire, and the number of heats to the credit of each performer—a sort of vague foreshadowing of the famous “Great Table of Trotters under their Sires,” later to be conceived and developed by Mr. Wallace, and destined to become the most valuable single trotting compilation yet designed, and the one now universally used, adopted and imitated. This volume also gave a table of 2:25 trotters to the close of 1873, arranged in the order of their speed. The first table of trotters under their sires was published in Wallace’s Monthly, covering the statistics to the end of 1877.
The third volume was much larger than its predecessors. The industry of breeding trotting and pacing horses was, under the stimulus of the “Register” and Wallace’s Monthly, and other agencies with which Mr. Wallace was identified, and of a general era of prosperity then dawning, advancing and extending now at rapid strides, and about this time certain events of almost inestimable influence on the future of the business transpired.
In the autumn of 1876 there was formed at New York the National Association of Trotting Horse Breeders, an organization in which Mr. Wallace’s influence predominated from its inception until a short time before its dissolution, for lack of an excuse for existence. This organization was broadly representative of the best elements in the breeding business in its virile and useful days, and accepted a sort of advisory and supervisory control over the “Trotting Register;” and Volume III. and subsequent volumes were compiled under its authority. Questions of disputed pedigrees and other such issues affecting breeding and the record of pedigrees were decided by a Board of Censors appointed by this association; and, aside from its usefulness in connection with the “Trotting Register,” it contributed largely to the advancement and encouragement of breeding by inaugurating colt stakes, and other stakes designed more especially to attract the breeder than the professional campaigner.
Before the third volume was through the press the need of some measure for restricting registration became apparent to Mr. Wallace. The economics of the “Register” demanded it, but beyond this the need of systematizing and establishing a specific breed called for some definition as to what rightfully belonged to that breed. Up to this time the only rule was the indefinite provision that “anything well related to trotting blood” might be acceptable as eligible by the compiler of the “Register.” The problem that confronted those who took a broad and comprehensive view was to educate public opinion up to that point where the possibility of establishing a breed of trotters would be appreciated. As early as April, 1878, Wallace’s Monthly strongly urged the necessity of a standard, and this was the first suggestion of one that had been made. At the November meeting of the National Association of Trotting Horse Breeders that year the Board of Censors in their report presented a letter from Mr. Wallace advising the adoption of a standard, a recommendation which the Board indorsed. Meanwhile the matter was being agitated and discussed in Wallace’s Monthly, and affairs were gradually shaping for action. In the March, 1879, number of the Monthly a standard formulated by certain Kentucky breeders and forwarded by Major H. C. McDowell was printed and commented upon. It was fair on its face, but under discussion its weak points were made clear. For instance, its fourth rule made standard “Any mare the dam of any mare or stallion that has produced or sired a horse, mare, or gelding with a record of 2:30.” It was pointed out that under this rule the celebrated English thoroughbred mare Queen Mary would become a standard trotter, for her son, the race horse Bonnie Scotland, had sired the trotter Scotland. As other provisions made the sisters and brothers of standard animals standard, the defects of the Kentucky standard were made patent, and the Breeders’ Association failed to approve it. Instead, at a meeting at the Everett House, New York, November 19, 1879, the standard as printed on pages 519-20, in the framing of which Mr. Wallace and General B. F. Tracy did the active work, was unanimously adopted.
Under this standard the work of compiling Volume IV., which involved bringing forward animals registered in preceding volumes, that met its requirements, and numbering stallions, was carried on.
Meanwhile, some Kentucky gentlemen failed to acquiesce in the standard decision, and had, or believed they had, other grievances against the compiler of the “Register.” They proceeded to plan to control the “Register.” but as in the last chapter of this work Mr. Wallace gives full details of this and subsequent battles for the control of registration, this history need not be here repeated.
In the meantime the breeding interest was enjoying remarkable prosperity, and this was reflected upon and through the “Trotting Register” and Wallace’s Monthly. In 1882 Volume IV. was published, Volume V. in 1886, and Volume VI. in 1887, these containing about 6,000 pedigrees each. Volume VII. appeared in 1888, Volume VIII. in 1890, and Volume IX., the last published by Mr. Wallace, appeared in 1891.