Fortunately for men, horses, and hounds, hunting is but little indulged in throughout America. I mean, of course, fox-hunting, for I cannot attempt to cry down the many splendid and manly hunts of other descriptions in which the Americans carry off the palm.
In many parts of the country—more especially in the States—the people so affect trotting-horses, that the matter has become a craze. It is a fact, which has more than once been proved, that four legs capable of carrying any sort of frame a mile in less than two-and-a-quarter minutes, will easily fetch a thousand pounds; and if the animal is in condition to repeat the performance several times in one day, his price will range correspondingly higher.
The usual arrangement—very seldom varied—is that the "trots" shall be mile heats; and as the horses are, generally speaking, pretty well done up at the finish, owing to pace, excitement, and temperature, twenty minutes are allowed between each heat for "cooling off" purposes.
When a horse is distanced in one of these trials, he is at once withdrawn; and the judges have the privilege, which they use, of distancing a horse for breaking—or, as we would say, commencing to run—which is, as may be supposed, a thing most difficult to prevent.
Sometimes a racehorse is hitched double with a trotter. This is called, in American parlance, a running-mate. The runner takes all the weight and draft of the "sulky," and the trotter merely trots alongside of him. It requires a very level-headed horse to keep evenly to his trot, with a runner tearing away at sweeping pace beside him, and the trial is regarded as simply one of skill, and is rarely successful. A trotter who can coolly and evenly maintain his trot when hitched with a racer, can command for his owner any amount of money, even though he be in all other respects comparatively worthless.
Races, of which many are held at Rhode Island, are as distinct as possible from trots. The courses are made circular; as much so, at least, as the lie of the land will permit, and are beautifully constructed, the grading being especially attended to. They are generally enclosed by a very high boarded fence, an admission fee being charged at the opening. This arrangement is found to answer admirably, as the amount demanded—although not an extravagant one—is sufficient to exclude a goodly number of racing roughs, whose interest in the sport is not more keen than their desire to investigate the contents of their neighbours' pockets.
Trotting-tracks are constructed upon the same principles as race-courses, but the track is harder. Sometimes, however, although not frequently, races and trots are held over the same course, and when this is done the track is carefully softened for the races, by a harrowing process, which is most carefully carried out.
Most of the hacks and hunters in use in America—a very large portion, at least, of the saddle-horses—are racers which have been rejected from the racing-stables. This is particularly the case at East Greenwich, and throughout the States. Some of these horses are "weeds," but a few of them are well worthy of the high prices given for them, being really splendid animals, in spite of the crabbing which they receive at the judge's hands before they are thrown out of the contest, and passed over to the proprietorship of dealers in hacks.
Very fine horses of the hunter class are bred in Kentucky—the Yorkshire of America—and are sold at comparatively low rates. I saw a magnificent chestnut, seventeen two in height, with grand action, and so superbly ribbed-up and built as to be capable of carrying twenty stone, which had been sold there to an enterprising Irish speculator for three hundred and twenty dollars, a good deal less than eighty pounds of our money. The animal afterwards fetched upwards of six hundred guineas at Tattersall's, to carry a top-weight millionaire with the Whaddon Chase hounds. This was, however, an exceptional case, for it is not usually an easy thing, nor even possible, to make money by trading in Kentucky hunters. A few speculative European dealers have from time to time tried it, but their efforts have not been crowned with the anticipated reward, the reason being, that travelling expenses swallow up profits. Seven days and nights of constant journeying must be gone through before the animals are brought to the Atlantic sea-board; and then there is the crossing to encounter, with its cost and perils. Altogether, it is scarcely a profitable venture, and some who have embarked in it will, I know, be quite ready to endorse my opinions upon the subject.
Stag-hunting used to be very prevalent in distant parts of America. Strangers traversing tracts of country north of the Ohio will be told this by guides and fellow-travellers, and will marvel that in such a district it could ever have been a popular sport. Anything more perilous it would be impossible to conceive, the "going" being principally up and down precipitous inclines, dotted at frequent intervals with huge boulders, half buried in the reedy grass, over which the horses blunder and stumble at almost every stride,—not unfrequently hurling their riders headlong down some dangerous ravine.