Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1882-02-11
The TrOtting Horse in ENGLAND.

"PendragOn,' in u recent issue of the Referee
makes very justitabe protest against the i'm
pOrtation OF American trOtting horses into Eng
land and the smuggling Of them into handicaps
and other contests as English-bred horses He
says: 'Trotting just now is in worse position.
SO far as trickery and chicane go, than it was
during the old POnders End period. Then
rowdyism was rampant enough, but the
superior art of ringing in wrong uns' was only
in its infancy. Within the last couple of years
the number of AmerCan-bred horses trotting
not as Americans but as English is simply
astonishing. Lookers-on may suspect. but they
can prove nothing. The absence OF a trotting
stud-book-the want of a hard and fast law
which would make pedigree and performance
absolutely essential to description-pilts insur-
mountable difficulties in the way of any one who
would endcayOr TO expose fraud. By
and-by somebody will get an American horse
over here good enough to stand upon his own
merits as an American. and gradually the re-
naming and redascriptiOn of other American
horses will fall away from them, and it will be
admitted that all the best shows supposed to
have been made by English horses have really
been made by horses that were imported"
''PendraSon cannot, however. let the chance
for a fling at anything American pass. In the
same article lie says: THE Americans have to
come here for strains from which to breed their
best horses We, with the finest material in the
world to hand, do not breed and break trotters
Tor ourselves in an honest and sportsmanlike
manner, but smuggle American trotters over
here with view to passing them OFF as English"
After somewhat lengthy and satirical
description of the high steppers seen
In the parks "Pendragon" continues by
saying: zone reason why trotting is so
famous sport in the states is because every
gentleman looks for trotting capacity in his own
horses. We constantly talk about the turf here
as means of improving the general breed Of
horses In hard fact it does nothing for Us COM
pared with what the trottiDg turf of America
does for American horses. Here all a nobleman
or gentleman looks for is style. In America
pace is the requsiton. =. BringingQrot-
tiers to England ought to be. though it is not.
like sending Goals TO Newcastle. The material
OF which American tFotters are made was origi-
naiiy English, and there is no reason whatever
why we should not do with this material as the
Americans have done, always providing pace is
to be considered a necessity. 1t is great pity
that the desire for a higher rate of trotting
speed should remain where it is without any
promise of spreading itself among the Weather
portions Of thecommunty. Is it not singularat
time when men possessed of money and leisure
are so anxious to do something different from
their Understanding with which their own
names will be for long identified no one
should turn his attention to the devel-
opment of an English trotting stock? For auyht
we see here to the contrary. it might be sup
posed that the American trotting horse is an
animal by itself. and that it lis Impossible to pro-
duce rival to him by means Of English half
breds and thoroughbreds. Remembering what
interest has been taken of late years among the
upper circles in coach-driving. it is nothing
short OF surprising that the desire for trotters
has failed to make itself manifest. Want of
originality is the block in the way. We're the
lead once taken; did. say. the Duke of West
minister but appear driving a pair whose chief
claim and attention was not that they paved
the air when going five miles an hour. but that
they could not trot a mile in three minutes+alI
London swelldom would be agog to get horses
like them. For fame-seeker this would be a
bigger thing than winning the Derby Trot-
ting as sport is also likely to take new step
forward through the recent action Of the Ma
tional Trotting Association, which at it's recent
annual meeting decided to do away with the
handicap system and adopt the time class sys-
tenn, as in the Unite States.