I agree fully with Mr. Winans concerning the form of the Assyrian pacer above. Fewer can show up today with a finer turned muzzle, face and neck, or show more strength, beauty and symmetry in form than the one in the outline above. Concerning the cobwebbed suggestion of the “society” paper about pacers being barred the track on trotting days, I beg to assure the author of the above letter that the brilliant idea died a-borning. There is plenty of brains and progressive spirit yet left among the managers of American trotting associations, and these gentlemen prefer rather to increase than to diminish the interest in the light harness horse. The pacer and the trotter are indissolubly linked together—in interest, destiny and blood. They have, too, much of the same breeding, too many kindred ties. Joined, as they are, by so many common ancestors, united as they are by so many great horses, no number of society asses can now pull them asunder.
In discussing this subject later, Mr. Winans wrote:
“There is one difference between a trotter and a pacer which I can show in sculpture, which has never been shown before by any artists, as painters cannot show it. I mean the upright, locomotive-like progression of a trotter and the side stride of the pacer. In a picture the difference of the gaits can only be shown by the position of the legs. In sculpture we can show how a trotter puts down his feet on each side of the imaginary line drawn on the ground straight under him, in the direction he is going, as the following illustration will show.
“But this is not true with the pacer. On the contrary, he puts his feet right on the line, as the following diagram will show:
“I can better explain myself by the following: If I model a horse standing still, and then cut off the two left side legs and model fresh ones in the act of being lifted up, so as to represent one position of the pace, I would have to push or bend the body of the horse over to the left till a plumb line from the center of his body would hang down to touch a line drawn on the ground from his two feet touching the ground, but if I wanted to make a trotter from the same model of a standing horse, I could make the fresh legs without having to bend over the body to either side.
“It is curious that the bronze statuettes of the pacer would not stand firm unless I bent the body over, which shows that nature knows just how to place animals so that the center of gravity should be right. Horses in the instantaneous photograph positions balance on their legs, but if I model in the conventional position of the run, I have to put a prop under the bronze horse’s belly, like most artists do.”
The subject of the proper balancing of harness horses is generally recognized as one of the most important in the business, and it is highly probable that more otherwise good drivers fail there, in the proper management of their horses, than in any other thing. Properly balanced, the battle is half over in the training of a naturally speedy horse.
The idea suggested in the letter above, if true, as it undoubtedly appears to be, naturally suggests that a very different system should be adopted in the proper balancing of pacers and trotters. It is impossible, of course, to tell how much the individuality of each horse would assert itself in attaining the ends sought in this direction, but so far as the mere matter of avoirdupois is concerned, it will be seen that on general principles the pacer, on account of moving a rear and fore foot at the same time, can come nearer having both shoes on those feet equal, than the trotter, where the aim should be to equalize the alternate feet.