As the investigation of disputed, spurious and fraudulent pedigrees was a prime necessity in order to reach safe and honest grounds upon which to build up a breed of trotters, much of my time through all my editorial life was devoted to this kind of investigation. From the first page of the first volume of the “Register” I was deeply impressed with the importance of having all pedigrees absolutely correct, and this impression grew into a vital conviction that without this a breed of trotters never could be established. I soon found that I had accepted from some breeders of the very highest respectability a goodly number of pedigrees that were thoroughly rotten in their extensions. This taught me that I must study the moral fiber of breeders critically, as well as their pedigrees, and that from the highest to the lowest. Some men are honest from principle and because it is right to be honest, while others are honest because “honesty is the best policy.” Some men are dishonest because of ignorance, others because they were born cheats, but the most dangerous of all rogues is the man who will utter a false pedigree and then prove it by trained witnesses who, for half a dollar, can remember whatever is necessary and forget whatever might be against their employer’s interest. By this kind of evidence a man can prove anything. Not very long ago a man proved that a certain mare came out of a certain other mare, and when that was shown to be impossible he turned round and proved (?) that she was out of another mare, and there was just as much truth in the one as the other, and not a single word of truth in either. So long as there are men in the world there will be rogues among them, but the intelligence of the public in breeding matters has so greatly advanced that many an honest man would begin to doubt his own sanity if he were even to think of breeding in lines that he was once ready to fight for as the only right and successful way to breed. The brainless advocacy of “more running blood in the trotter,” was substantially the basis of the whole brood of dishonest pedigrees, against which it became my duty to wage war; but to-day no intelligent man in all the land can be found to advocate any such balderdash unless it be in the foolish support of thoughtless opinions previously expressed.
The subject of “How the Trotting Horse is Bred,” is a most interesting one because it is entirely new in animal economy and is distinctively American. The initial thought that opened the door to the practical and scientific consideration of the subject was the happy conception, in the spring of 1872, of the little phrase, “Trotting Instinct.” Following this with the definition of the word “instinct” as being “the sum of inherited habits,” the term expressed in two words and the definition of it in five words, put the whole subject in a form that was easily comprehensible and flashed upon the mind as thoroughly practical. This little phrase, with its definition, when once comprehended, is a very complete epitome of all that has been taught and all that has been learned of the art of breeding the trotter. It not only embraces, but requires, the trotting inheritance as the only starting point, which must be strengthened and the instinct intensified by the development of the speed of succeeding generations. It stood some years at the parting of the ways between intelligence and ignorance, between enlightened judgment and stupid prejudice, between honesty and dishonesty, but now it is accepted, in practice, as the universal law from one end of the land to the other. Thus, we have not only added millions to the wealth of the country, but without any outside assistance or instruction we have produced a horse that by way of pre-eminence, throughout the world, is justly entitled to be designated, “The Horse of America.”
CHAPTER II.
ORIGINAL HABITAT OF THE HORSE.
No indications that the horse was originally wild—The steppes of High Asia and Arabia not tenable as his original home—Color not sufficient evidence —Impossibility of horses existing in Arabia in a wild state—No horses in Arabia until 356 A.D.—Large forces of Armenian, Median, and Cappadocian cavalry employed more than one thousand seven hundred years B.C.—A breed of white race horses—Special adaptability of the Armenian country to the horse—Armenia a horse-exporting country before the Prophet Ezekiel—Devotion of the Armenian people to agricultural and pastoral pursuits through a period of four thousand years—All the evidences point to ancient Armenia as the center from which the horse was distributed.
In undertaking to consider and determine what particular portion of the earth was the original habitat of the horse, we must not forget that we are in a field that antedates all history, both sacred and profane. When we have gone back to the very first dawnings of historical records we are still far short of the period in which initial light can be reached. In profane history, with more or less safety, we can get back to a point about seventeen hundred years before the Christian era; and in sacred history about two hundred years less. At both of these dates the horses referred to were not in a feral state, but were the companions and servants of man.
There have been two separate theories advanced which demand some attention, because of the eminence and learning of the men who have advanced them. The first is that the original habitat of the horse was on the steppes of High Asia, east and north of the Caspian and the Black Sea. The only argument I have ever seen advanced in support of this theory is based upon the great number of wild horses that are found in that part of the world, and that so many of them are of a dun color. From the frequency of the recurrence of the dun color another theory has sprung up to the effect that the original color of the horse was dun, and hence it is argued that when the dun color appears in our own day it must be taken as evidence that the original color of the horse was dun. This reasoning is very far from being conclusive, for there are dun horses and dun tribes in all breeds, just as there are greys, and the color is just as liable to be transmitted as any other color. In the last century there were many dun horses in England, and at least one of that color was advertised very widely as “the Dun Arabian,” probably a foreign horse, but it is hardly possible that he was an Arabian. It was then the custom of the country to call all foreign horses “Arabians,” no difference from what part of the world they came. It has been stated on what seemed to be good authority that a dun horse once won the Derby, but whether the color may result from line breeding or from atavistic tendencies, the argument advanced does not seem to have any weight in it for the purpose intended.
Transcriber’s Note: the map can be clicked for a larger version.