It is not my purpose here to undertake to discuss the reasons for the almost continuous supremacy of the pacer over the trotter, for there is no data from which I might frame a conclusion that would really “hold water.” At best, therefore, I can only suggest two or three thoughts. Speed at the pace is older, and has been longer in the process of development, than speed at the trot. In 1747 pacing races had then been fashionable in Maryland, and had been carried on in that colony time out of mind, but we have no trace of trotting races. One year later (1748) “running, pacing and trotting” races had become so numerous and so common in the colony of New Jersey that they were declared a nuisance and suppressed by the legislative authority. My impression from the language of the act is that it was aimed chiefly at the running and the pacing races, and that the trotters were not very numerous. It seems to be a reasonable conclusion that this racing mania in New Jersey took its rise about 1665, when Governor Nicolls established the Newmarket race course on Long Island, and if so, it had been growing in strength for over eighty years, and if we add the time from then till now we find that the speed of the pacer has been going on almost continuously for over two hundred years in our own country. There is another fact entering into the rural life of colonial times that must not be left out of consideration. The pacer was the universal saddle horse, and the trotter never was tolerated for that service. Every farmer’s son had his saddle horse, and when two of them met what so natural and common as to determine then and there which was the faster, if a little stretch of road offered? In these neighborhood rivalries, if not in actual racing, the instinct of speed at the pace was kept alive and developed, from generation to generation. If I am right in this little study of colonial life, we can understand that the inheritance of speed at the pace has come down to our own time through a great many generations of pacers, and hence the pace is the faster gait. There is one fact in our own experience that seems to sustain this with great force, and that is the small amount of “pounding” that the pacer requires in order to reach the full development of his powers. There is no need of driving a pacer to death in order to teach him how to pace, for he already knows how to pace, and all that is needed in the way of training is to get him into high condition. It may be possible that the lateral action is faster than the diagonal because it is less complicated, but I can see no anatomical reason for this, as the two legs in both gaits act as one leg. The only difference I can see in practice is that the trotter has more up-and-down motion than the pacer; that is, he bounds in every revolution, describing a series of depressed curves with his back as he moves, while the pacer rises less from the ground with his hind feet and seems to glide instead of bound; in other words, there is less action thrown away by the pacer than the trotter, and this may arise from the more complex action in the diagonal than in the lateral motion.
The pacer has reached a higher acclivity than the trotter, but he is not so well assured in his footing. His present popularity and his upward flight are phenomenal, but the causes that have sent him there are abnormal and not lasting. In his best individualities he is simply a gambling machine when in the hands of unscrupulous men, to be manipulated in whatever direction he will make the most money. Racing, at whatever gait, is not necessarily demoralizing nor disreputable, but when it falls into the control of the “professionals” it becomes both. So long as it remains under the control of the breeders it is not only honorable and legitimate for them to develop and race their stock, but it is a necessary adjunct to their business, for they must thus bring their products before the public, if they expect to make their business pay. Breeders should not own race tracks, or if they do, they should have no part nor lot in the percentage uniformly paid for the gambling privilege.
The history of racing in this country teaches over and over again that whenever the breeding and racing interest falls into the control of gamblers, down goes the whole interest and honest men suffer with the rogues. The grasping track managers are to-day complaining loudly that they cannot afford to give trotting meetings unless they are allowed to bring in the pool-sellers and make them divide the “swag” with the track. Every attempt by legislatures to make gambling on races a felony outside the race track and a virtue inside is a most arrant humbug and most destructive in its results. It makes the race track a cesspool of every vice, and a stench in the nostrils of every honest man and decent woman. The moral sense of the people all over this country is being aroused, and if public gambling cannot be suppressed on horse races, then history will repeat itself and horse racing will be wiped out. The gamblers and their friends will sneer at this as “puritanism,” but no difference about the name—it will come.
But, destructive and ruinous as gambling on races may be to the life and moral character of young men, as well as to the material interests of honest and reputable breeders, it hardly comes within my province to discuss it further in this place, and therefore I will return to the consideration of the pacer. As the historical periodicity is now looming in sight when the moral sense of the people will command the suppression of racing of every kind, the question becomes exceedingly pertinent as to what is to become of the pacer? He will no longer be of any value as a gambling machine, the days of the saddle horse are past as a means of travel, except by a few about the parks of the cities, and however uppish and handsome he may be, he is not and never will be a desirable driving horse in harness. We have already used sufficient of his blood to create the American Saddle Horse, and if the saddle horse shall produce “after his kind” we need no more infusions from the pure pacer. In the trotter his blood has leavened everything, and in some lines more than we desire or need. He has been a great source of trotting speed, and if, as I am inclined to believe, Messenger’s power to transmit trotting speed came from the old English pacer, then the pacer is the only source of that speed. Under the condition of things as here foreshadowed he will probably sink back into the obscurity from which he emerged twenty years ago.
CHAPTER XV.
THE AMERICAN SADDLE HORSE.
The saddle gaits come only from the pacer—Saddle gaits cultivated three hundred years ago—Markham on the saddle gaits—The military seat the best—The unity of the pace and trot—Gaits analyzed—Saddle Horse Register—Saddle horse progenitors—Denmark not a thoroughbred horse.
In the preceding chapters the pacer has been considered from the standpoint of his antiquity, history, speed at the pace, and his contributions to speed at the trot. We now come to consider him as the founder of the best and most delightful type of saddle horses in the world. This estimate of his quality and value had a solid foundation in the judgment and habits of our ancestors at an early period in our history. When our patriotic forbears entered upon the struggle for independence, they were fully alive to the necessity of foreign sympathy and aid. For this purpose agents were sent abroad to enlist the good feelings and, if possible, secure co-operation of foreign governments, especially that of France. Mr. Silas Dean was sent to Paris, and in a communication to the secret committee of Congress, under date of November 28, 1776, he writes: “I wish I had here one of your best saddle horses, of the American or Rhode Island breed—a present of that kind would be money well laid out with a certain personage.” This was probably intended as a present to Marie Antoinette, or some other person having great influence at court. It further indicates that “the American or Rhode Island Saddle Horse” was at that period, in Mr. Dean’s opinion at least, the best in the world. (See Dean Papers, New York Historical Society, Vol. I., p. 377.)