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

by John Hankins Wallace

To the man of average intelligence and candor on horse subjects it certainly is not necessary to enter upon an elaborate discussion to show that the saddle gaits come from the pacer, but a certain class of writers, who neither declare nor attempt to prove their position, constantly imply that the saddle gaits came from the “thoroughbred.” As it is better, therefore, to make everything plain as we go along, I will very briefly consider this point. Twelve years ago, through Wallace’s Monthly, I presented the following questions to all gentlemen interested in saddle-horse affairs and acquainted with saddle-horse history: “Are all the tribes and families noted for their saddle qualities descended in whole or in part from pacing ancestry?” In order to cover the whole question, no difference from what standpoint it might be considered, I added the following: “Has any family or subfamily of saddle horses come from pure running ancestry and without any admixture of pacing blood?” To these questions Major Hord, then editor of the Spirit of the Farm, at Nashville, Tennessee, a gentleman of very wide and accurate knowledge on this subject, but strongly in favor of running blood, made the following response through his paper:

“We can only draw conclusions from established facts in reference to these questions, for we do not think they can be answered otherwise, as the original ancestry of our best saddle families is more or less clouded in obscurity. It is an established fact, demonstrated by experience, that in order to get a saddle horse, the quickest and most successful way is to get in the pacing blood; it matters not how good or bad the other blood may be, a strong dash of pacing blood will almost invariably improve the animal for saddle purposes, and never, under any circumstances, does a pacing cross detract from an animal’s qualities for the saddle. Judging from these facts, we conclude that all our saddle families are descended, at least in part, from pacing ancestry. On the other hand, all our best saddle families have a strong infusion of thoroughbred running blood. This blood, however, is valuable only for the courage, bone, and finish it gives the animal, for it imparts none of the saddle gaits; and while we have secured the best results in breeding the saddle horse by mixing the running and pacing blood, we have observed that too much running blood in the stallion detracts from his success as a sire of saddle stock. As a rule, no trainer’s skill can make a good saddle horse out of a thoroughbred runner, whereas if you mix two or more strong pacing crosses on top of the running blood, a child can gait the produce to the saddle. We have sometimes seen good saddle horses that were thoroughbreds, but have never seen a perfect one. Our observation and experience lead us to the conclusion that the natural saddle gaits come from the pacers, but to the runner we are indebted for the size, style, bone and finish of our saddle stock.”

In this reply, when the author says “all of our saddle families are descended, at least in part, from pacing ancestry,” and when he adds to this that “running blood imparts none of the saddle gaits,” he has answered both questions very fully and very satisfactorily. The argument that running blood gives bone and finish, and all that, is very well as a theory of breeding, but it has nothing to do with the questions propounded. As all families of saddle horses have pacing blood, and as there is no family without it, it may be taken as settled that the saddle gaits come from the pacer.

I notice that at least one of the present saddle gaits was cultivated more than three hundred years ago. Mr. Gervaise Markham, a writer of the sixteenth century, and probably the second English author on the horse, says: “If you buy a horse for pleasure the amble is the best, in which you observe that he moves both his legs on one side together, neat with complete deliberation, for if he treads too short he is apt to stumble, if too large to cut and if shuffling or rowling he does it slovenly and besides rids no ground. If your horse be designed for hunting, a racking pace is most expedient, which little differs from the amble, only is more active and nimble, whereby the horse observes due motion, but you must not force him too eagerly, lest being in confusion he lose all knowledge of what you design him to, and so handle his legs carelessly.” The orthography of the work “rack” as used by Markham is “wrack,” and this is the only place I have met with it in any of the old authors. Webster defines the word “rack” as “a fast amble,” but Markham uses it in contradistinction from the amble. It is worthy of note here that the word “rack” is older than the word “pace,” in its use as designating the particular gait of the horse, and through all the centuries it has been retained. Of all the gaits that are subsidiary to the pace and derived from that gait, the rack is probably the most common, and in many sections of the country the pacer is called a racker. Racking is often designated as “single-footing,” and in this gait as well as in the running walk and fox trot, there are four distinct impacts in the revolution. It follows, then, that they are not susceptible of a very high rate of speed.

In all the services which the horse renders and in all the relations which he bears to his master, there is no relation in which they can be made to appear to such great mutual advantage as when the one animal is carrying the other on his back. There is no occasion on which a beautiful horse looks so well as when gracefully mounted and skillfully handled by a lady or gentleman. And, I will add, there is no occasion when a lady or gentleman, who is at home in the saddle, looks so well as when mounted on a beautiful and well-trained American horse. England has no saddle horses, and never can have any till she secures American blood and adopts American methods. The shortening of the stirrups and the swinging up and down like a tilt-hammer is not, with our English friends, a matter of choice, but a necessity to avoid being jolted to death. Their very silly imitators, on this side, think they can’t afford to be out of the fashion, because “it’s English, you know.” For safety, true gentility, and comfort the military seat is the only seat, and if you have a horse upon which you can’t keep that seat without punishment, he is no saddle horse. If your doctor tells you that your liver needs shaking up, mount an English trotting horse, but if you ride for pleasure and fresh air, get a horse that is bred and trained to the saddle gaits. There is just as much difference between the two horses as the difference between a springless wagon on a cobble-stone pavement and a richly upholstered coach on the asphalt.

The American Saddle Horse has an origin as well as a history. His origin dates back thousands of years, and his history has been preserved in art and in letters since the beginning of the Christian era. For centuries he was the fashionable horse in England, and the only horse ridden by the nobility and gentry. Away back in the reign of Elizabeth it was not an uncommon thing to use hopples to teach and compel trotters to pace, just as in our day hopples are often used to teach and compel pacers to trot. In the early settlement of the American colonies pacers were far more numerous than trotters, and this continued to be the case till after the War of the Revolution. The great influx of running blood after that period practically banished the pacer to the western frontiers, where a remnant has been preserved for the uses of the saddle; and on account of his great speed and gameness he has again returned to popular favor in our own day.

The walk and the canter, or short gallop, are gaits that are common to all breeds and varieties of horses, but what are known as “the saddle gaits” are derived wholly from the pace and are therefore considered modifications or variations of the pace. In regions of country where the saddle horse is bred and developed these gaits are well known among horsemen and riders as the rack (single-footing), the running-walk, and the fox-trot. These gaits are not easily described so as to be understood without an example before the eye. The rack is the most easily explained so as to be comprehended, and it is sometimes called the slow pace. In this movement the hind foot strikes the ground an instant before the fore foot on the same side, then the other two feet are moved and strike in the same way; thus there are four strokes in the revolution, in pairs. As each foot has its own stroke we see the appositeness of the phrase “single-footing.” The four strokes are in pairs, as one, two—three, four, and in many cases as the speed of the horse increases the interval between the strokes is lost and the horse is at a clean rapid pace. As a matter of course none of these gaits in which the horse makes four strokes instead of two in the revolution can be speedy. They are not developed nor cultivated for speed alone, but for the comfort and ease of the rider and the change from one to another for the rest and ease of the horse.

These “saddle gaits” are always derivatives from the pace, and I never have seen one that did not possess more or less pacing blood. A careful examination of the first and second volumes of “The National Saddle Horse Register” establishes this fact beyond all possible contradiction. This work is a very valuable contribution to the horse history of the country, but it is a misfortune that more care has not been taken in the exclusion of fictitious crosses in a great multitude of pedigrees. This trouble is specially apparent among the supposed breeding of many of the old stallions that are inserted as “Foundation Stock.” The tendency throughout seems to be to cover up and hide away the very blood to which we are indebted for the saddle horse, and to get in all the blood possible that is in direct antagonism to the foundation of the saddle gaits. It can be accepted as a fundamental truth in horse lore, that from the day the first English race horse was imported into this country to the present day, which covers a period of about one hundred and fifty years, nobody has ever seen, either in England or in this country, a thoroughbred horse that was a pacer. When the old race horse Denmark covered the pacing daughter of the pacer Cockspur, the pacing blood of the dam controlled the action and instincts of the colt, and in that colt we have the greatest of saddle-horse sires, known as Gaines’ Denmark.

As this horse Denmark was by far the greatest of all saddle-horse progenitors, and as his superiority has been widely attributed to his “thoroughbred” sire Denmark, the son of imported Hedgford, I have taken some pains to examine his pedigree. His sire was thoroughbred, his dam and grandam were mongrels, and the remoter crosses were impossible fictions. The fact that he ran four miles cuts no figure as evidence of purity of blood, for horses were running four miles in this country before the first “thoroughbred” was born. Of the fourteen stallions that are inserted as “Foundation Stock,” it is unfortunate that the choice seems to be practically restricted to the State of Kentucky, while the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Tennessee, to say nothing of Illinois, Missouri, etc., have produced numbers of families and tribes that are much more prominent and valuable from the true saddle-horse standpoint than some that appear in the select list of fourteen. It is doubtless true, however, that more attention has been paid to symmetry and style, and to the correct development and culture of the true saddle gaits, in Kentucky than in any of the other States. With such horses as Gaines’ Denmark, John Dillard, Tom Hal, Brinker’s Drennon, Texas, Peters’ Halcorn, and Copperbottom the list is all right, but the other half-dozen are mostly young and have hardly been heard of outside of their own immediate neighborhoods. It is a notable fact that old Pacing Pilot does not appear as the progenitor of a saddle family.

In considering the comparative merits of the leading foundation stallions we find that Denmark was not a success in any direction except as the sire of handsome and stylish saddle horses. John Dillard may not have been the equal of Denmark, in the elegance of his progeny, but he far surpassed him in his valuable relations to the trotter. His daughters became quite famous as the producers of trotters of a high order, and they have over twenty in the 2:30 list. The Tom Hals have developed phenomenal speed at the pace, and a great deal of it, interspersed with but few trotters.