A famous saddle-horse and winner of many blue ribbons. Owned and ridden by Mrs. W. A. McGibbon.
2 HERO
A fine type of heavy-weight Virginia trotting bred hunter and jumper. Owned by Mr. Paul D. Cravath.
3 KENTUCKY’S CHOICE
One of the most famous registered saddle horses in the world. He was sold for $7500, the record price for a Kentucky saddler. Owned by Mrs. Richard Tasker Lowndes.
A critic who objected to the trotter on account of his inability to breed true has lately proposed to get a coach-horse from the Kentucky saddle-horse, a suggestion which, if somewhat novel, seems to me a good one. I fancy that this writer must have had in mind the pair of Forest Denmarks I saw at the Lexington Fair three years ago. These horses were by Forest Denmark, a registered Kentucky saddle-horse. One of them, Tattersall, was not only a saddle-horse, but had been the champion gaited saddle-horse of Kentucky. They were undoubtedly the best pair in the State. They were afterward bought by an ardent adherent of Christian Science from Texas for presentation to Mrs. Eddy, and were sent to her. Mrs. Eddy, after trying them and finding them not entirely amenable to influence, requested her Texan admirer to take them back, which he did. I know the Forest Denmarks well. They are largely trotting bred. One of them, the champion heavy-weight saddle-horse in a recent New York Horse Show, the Cardinal, was originally a harness-horse. The official spelling of the name of these horses, by the way, is probably incorrect. The founder of this branch of the Denmarks was a horse called Ned Forrest and must have been named after Edwin Forrest, the actor.
The saddle-horses brought to New York are largely of mixed saddle and trotting stock, and are often pure trotters. Trotters have the hock action necessary to a comfortable trot under the saddle much more generally than thoroughbreds. They have this action till they get down to their very fast gait, when they are likely to begin to roll, which is unpleasant. This does not always happen, however. There is now in New York a gentleman who rides only trotters that have a record of 2:10 or thereabouts, and who finds such a trot the best of gaits. I can believe that, from some such experiences of my own. About forty years ago I used to ride, on the road from Madison, New Jersey, to Morristown, a big trotter of Kimball Jackson stock that was fast for those days, and was, besides, a powerful and particularly honest and friendly horse. Going at a slow trot, he was perhaps the roughest horse I ever was on. But when he got down to his fast trot, one did not leave the saddle at all. I have never obtained such pleasure from any action in the saddle as from that horse going at that gait. A thoroughbred galloping on turf, measuring the earth like an animated pair of compasses, with a succession of leaps and bounds, and going at the rate of an express-train with scarcely more shaking to the rider than a walk would give him,—so smoothly, indeed, that he might almost carry a glass of water,—will of course give one delightful sensations. But that trotting-horse was even better. You will notice in a trotting race in harness that a horse, when put to top-speed, will now and then give a leap forward of perhaps fifteen or eighteen feet, still holding his trot. It was at the moment when the Kimball Jackson trotter, with one of his powerful hind-quarters, assisted perhaps with an extra shove off from the other, would propel himself forward through the air in this occasional leap that I experienced the keenest delight that I ever got from any kind of locomotion. I cannot forget those morning rides in that pretty country on sunny October days, the air a golden fluid, and the distant hills lying in cameo clearness, over which were chasing the thick, sharply defined shadows cast by the clouds.
A very great merit of the trotter is his sense and kindness. His education is happier than that of the thoroughbred. As a harness-horse, he is nearer to everyday use than the thoroughbred. He is raced at a more mature age, and he does not receive the cruel treatment of the thoroughbred. Whip and spur seem to be inseparable from running races. But a trotter may break if he is whipped severely, although one sometimes sees the whip laid on pretty well in a trotting-race. People in Europe, who have used our trotters, and even those who do not like them, have told me that they found them remarkably sensible and kind as compared with their own horses. Sense and kindness, I am sure, are not only among the most useful, but among the most attractive, qualities a horse can have. A certain trotting-bred horse of my acquaintance has a soul such as I never knew in any other horse. I have tried hard to trace his pedigree, because I wanted to know where that soul came from, and to see it bred into other horses. But I have never been able to find it. Perhaps some one who reads this may help me to some information about it. He was a black gelding, 16:2 hands high, very handsome, and was bought by Hudson from Bayless and Turney of Paris, Kentucky, and sent to New York in 1896, at that time five years old. I suppose he was bred in Bourbon County. I say I never saw such a mind in any other horse. Horsemen have many best horses they ever knew. It is not their way to be off with the old love before they are on with the new. But I am sure he was, on the whole, the nicest horse I ever knew. High-lifed as he was, he was full of sweet intelligence. In his dark, melancholy eyes one read that “sad lucidity of soul” mentioned by the poet. And he was so kind and considerate. A horse of great ambition, his one fault was that he pulled; but he consented without the least show of ill temper to the use of a pretty severe curb.
