CHAPTER XIV.
THE AMERICAN PACER AND HIS RELATIONS TO THE AMERICAN TROTTER.
Regulations against stallions at large—American pacers taken to the West Indies—Narragansett pacers; many foolish and groundless theories about their origin—Dr. McSparran on the speed of the pacer—Mr. Updike’s testimony—Mr. Hazard and Mr. Enoch Lewis—Exchanging meetings with Virginia—Watson’s Annals—Matlack and Acrelius—Rip Van Dam’s horse—Cooper’s evidence—Cause of disappearance—Banished to the frontier—First intimation that the pace and the trot were essentially one gait—How it was received—Analysis of the two gaits—Pelham, Highland Maid, Jay-Eye-See, Blue Bull—The pacer forces himself into publicity—Higher rate of speed—Pacing races very early—Quietly and easily developed—Comes to his speed quickly—His present eminence not permanent—The gamblers carried him there—Will he return to his former obscurity?
In the several chapters devoted to “Colonial Horse History” will be found all the leading facts that I have been able to glean from the early sources of information. With the exceptions of the horses brought from Utrecht in Holland to New Amsterdam (New York), two shiploads that sailed out of the Zuider Zee and landed at Salem, Massachusetts, and those brought from Sweden by the colonists that settled on the Delaware, all the early importations came from England. As much the larger number of those from England and Sweden were pacers, the breeds and habits of action were soon mixed up, as those who had no pacers wanted pacers for the saddle, and those who wanted more size, regardless of the gait, were always ready to supply their want by an exchange of their saddle horses for more size. The Dutch horses were certainly something over fourteen hands and the English and Swedish horses were perhaps nearer thirteen than fourteen hands. The colonists from the first, and from one end of the land to the other, seem to have appreciated the importance of increasing the size and strength of their horse stock, and this was very hard to do under the conditions then prevailing of allowing their horses to roam at large. Hence, stringent regulations were adopted in all the colonies against permitting immature entire colts and stallions under size to wander where they pleased. It is doubtful whether these regulations were any more effective than those of Henry VIII., for while there was some increase, it was hardly perceptible until after the close of the colonial days. The real increase did not commence till the farmers had provided themselves with facilities for keeping their breeding stock at home.
JOHN R. GENTRY.
By Ashland Wilkes, pacing record 2:00½, 1896.
It is very evident from the statistics of size and gait, as given in the chapters referred to above, that our forefathers wisely selected the most compact, strong and hardy animals they could find in England as the type best adapted to fight their way against the hardships of a life in the wilderness of the new world. There have been some attempts, wholly fanciful and baseless, to trace importations from other countries, outside of those mentioned above, but all such attempts have proven wholly imaginary and worse than futile. In less than twenty years after the New England colonies received their first supply they commenced shipping horses by the cargo to Barbadoes and other West India Islands. This trade was cultivated, extended to all the islands, and continued during the remainder of the seventeenth and practically the whole of the eighteenth century. The pacers of the American colonies were exceedingly popular and sought after by the Spanish as well as the Dutch and English islands. Indeed, the planters of Cuba alone carried away at high prices nearly all the pacers that New England could produce. They knew nothing about pacers for the saddle until they had tried them and then they would have nothing else. These continuous raids of the Spaniards of the West Indies upon the pacers of New England, and Rhode Island especially, has been assigned, by the local historians of that State as one of the principal causes of the decadence and practically final disappearance of the Narragansett pacer from the seat of his triumphs and his fame. It is just to remark here, in passing, that if there had been pacers among the horses of Spain, the Spanish dependencies would have secured their supplies from the mother country and not have come to Rhode Island and paid fabulous prices for them.
As all the pacing traditions of this country to-day point to the horses of Narragansett Bay as the source from which our modern pacers have derived their speed, we must give some attention to the various theories that have been advanced as to the origin of the Narragansett horse. In time past, and extending back to a period “whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary,” the horse world has been cursed with a class of men who have always been ready to invent and put in circulation the most marvelous and incredible stories about the origin of every remarkable horse that has appeared. Some of these wiseacres have maintained that the original Narragansett pacer was caught wild in the woods by the first settlers on Narragansett Bay, while others (and this seems to be of Canadian origin) have insisted that when being brought to this country a storm struck the ship and the horse was thrown overboard, and after nine days he was found off the coast of Newfoundland quietly eating rushes on a sand bar, where he was rescued and brought into Narragansett Bay. This story of the marine horse probably had its origin in the experiences of Rip Van Dam, which will be narrated further on. Another representation, coming this time from a very reputable source, has been made as to the origin of the Narragansett horse, and as many, no doubt, have accepted it as true, I must give it such consideration as its prominence demands. Mr. I. T. Hazard, a representative of the very old and prominent Hazard family of Rhode Island, in a letter to the Rev. Mr. Updike, makes the following statement:
“My grandfather, Governor Robinson, introduced the famous saddle horse, the Narragansett pacer, known in the last century over all the civilized parts of North America and the West Indies, from whence they have lately been introduced into England, as a ladies’ saddle horse, under the name of the Spanish Jennet. Governor Robinson imported the original from Andalusia, in Spain, and the raising of them for the West India market was one of the objects of the early planters of this country. My grandfather, Robert Hazard, raised about a hundred of them annually, and often loaded two vessels a year with them, and other products of his farm, which sailed direct from the South Ferry to the West Indies, where they were in great demand.”
This theory of the origin of the Narragansett came down to Mr. Hazard as a tradition, no doubt, but like a thousand other traditions it has nothing to sustain it. Opposed to it there are two clearly ascertained facts, either one of which is wholly fatal to it. In the first place, there were no pacers in Andalusia or any other part of Spain, and in the second place, these horses, according to official data, were the leading item of export from Rhode Island in 1680, and Governor Robinson was not born till about 1693. As impossibilities admit of no argument, I will not add another word to this “Andalusian” origin tradition, except to say that a hundred years later, when the pacing dam of Sherman Morgan was taken from Cranston, Rhode Island, up into Vermont, she was called a “Spanish mare,” because Mr. Hazard had said the original Narragansett had come from Spain. The story of the descendants of the Narragansetts having been carried from the West Indies to England, and there introduced under the name of the Spanish Jennet as a lady’s saddle horse, is wholly imaginative. The Spanish Jennet, whatever its gait may have been, was well known in England many years before the first horse was brought to any of the American colonies. (See extracts from Blundeville and Markham in Chapter XII.)