The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-09-18
Shall We Encourage Walking Horses?

It is hardly possible to take up jour
nal during the summer and autumn
without seeing either items or extended
accounts of what horses have accom-
plished in trotting or running. We
scarcely ever see accounts of their en-
durance in hauling loads at given
pace, o. the number of miles they have
accomplished in a given number of
hours at walking gait and yet this
practically is of far more Importance
than their endurance at speed.
Agricultural fair managers, who
might not inaptly be called "agricul-
tural horse-trot managers, advertise
widely the large amounts devoted as
premiums for trotting and running, but
not a word as to horses exhibiting the
greatest endurance and speed at a walk
ing gait. Why not? sob, it will not
draw the crowd" Very well if agri-
cultural fairs are simply intended to
draw that class of humanity whose end
and aim in life I'D trotting an running
horses, and betting thereon, well and
good.
There is, however, now and then an
individual who, while he admires this
noble animal at speed, very well knows
that this eternal pandering to mere
speed is not only vitiating the taste of
the public, but also is tending to breed
ont other valuable traits that can i'll be
spared.
A good walking horse should make,
at that gait, an average of four miles an
hour. How many can do it? Very few.
Why so? The walking gait has ceased
to be cultivated.
R1 ha oorof,11 of
and active horses they may be made to
walk five miles an hour as easily as the
ordinary horse now walks three. There
is no reason why an averagepace of four
miles an hour should not be kept up
with ordinary loads throughout the day.
In the days travel this would make a
gain of ten miles and the trained horse
would have accomplished forty miles as
against the thirty miles for the untrain-
ed one, and this just as easily TO the
horse of spirit as to the one with the
slower gait. If the horse have not the
mechanical structure for this gait, of
course he cannot do it. Having il, it
trotting or running gait; and if pre-
our agricultural fairs, it would be found
make, not only five miles an hour, but
some of them six. The naturally fast
walker, when trained, will even do
given amount of work, at the increased
pace, easier than at the slow pace. This
we know from experience.
The energy displayed among all clas-
SEES of breeders has been directed con-
stantIy to reduce and degrade the walk
ing gait, and as a consequence we find,
each year, fewer and fewer fast-walking
horses. This spirit has pervaded Our
fair rings until now it is difficult to find
a premium offered for the fastest
walking horse. In looking over the
premium lists already received by us
for 1874, embracing nearly all the
western states, we find only two pre-
miums offered for walking horses, one
by the Kansas City (Mo.) Industrial
Exposition, and the other by the North
eastern Iowa Agricultural society. We
are glad to be able to chronicle these
two, and hope that the number may be
yearly increased until the fast-walking
horse shall at least be regarded on
par with other road and working horses.
A great error has been made in ignoring
this most valuable of all the gaits of
the horse. Certainly reform is needed
in this direction.-W Western Rural.