The Sully County watchman. (Clifton, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1894, 1893-01-07
BREEDING HORSES.
Good ROadsters Always in Demand II
Properly Bred And Educated.

The business or industry of breed
ing the trotting horse has assumed
immense proportions during the past
five years, and today the term breeder"
includes almost all conditions of life,
from the millionaire who breeds for
pleasure, to the farmer who hopes at
least for profit.
In the craze for speed, the desire to
produce sensational performer that
shall bring the breeder fame and
fortune in day, all else has been oyer
looked, and where extreme speed has
not been attained a class of horses
have often been produced that scarce
ly meet the requirements of any
special class. While wealthy breeders
can afford to pocket the loss. or can
even up the culls by an occasional
sensational performer, the small breed
er cannot afford to have any culls,
because, as q rule, his facilities for
disposing of the best are not equal to
those possessed by the more wealthy.
Again, each year has found buyers
more discriminating, and while five.
four, land even three years ago ordinary
stock, with trotting pedigree, would
sell at price representing profit,
the increased supply has brought the
inevitable result that comes with over
production of any commodity, and
today pedigree counts for little, and
buyers demand individual excellence
AS result, the man that has bred
for speed alone, finds many failures
on his hands, bat, instead of becom-
ing discouraged, one should endeavor
to profit by the lessons taught, remem-
bering that he who perseveres and
profits by experience is bound to sue
ceed. -,
The market today for all classes of
horses is low. Electricity has in a
great measure usurped the horse for
street-railroad labor, and there is but
small margin of profit in breeding
heavy draft horses. If then the
market for trotters does not afford a
profit, what class of horses shall the
farmer or small breeder aim to pro-
duce?
There is one market that has never
yet been overstocked- class of
horses for which the demand has al
ways exceeded the supply, and this
class the farmer can produce with
more certainty and at less cost than
buyer were to ask where he could pdr-
chase two or three tirst-class road
horses of good solid colors, Is 1-2 to
l6 hands high, well broken, to walk
fast and make eight or ten miles an
hour at trot, safe for an amateur to
drive and able to make mile in 2.40,
could the reader direct him to any
breeder that had such horses for sale?
My experience, writes l.. c.. Underhill
In the A1aericdn CultiUator, has been
that buyers invariably say that good
road horses are the hardest class to
find anywhere.
Now such horse as have described
is not difficult to produce. A horse
that cannot beat 2:40, or even 2:3O, ID
OF no account as trotter, and if to a
lack of extreme speed we add a plain
conformation, slouchy gait, stun
bling over every stone-in fact, lack
of every requisite for pleasant road
horse-what have we? Well, nothing,
except possibly horse fit for the
ladies to drive on shopping tour OF
to pull a plow. Horses tit for either ot
these purposes are worth from 500 to
5000, and there is margin of loss in
stead of profit in producing a horse
that at maturity is not worth several
times these figures. La my opinion
there is no special line open to the
farmer today that promises better and
safer returns than breeding good road
horses with all the speed added that
can be worked in.
A good road horse should have size,
beauty, a pleasant, cheerful disposi-
ton, good free action, both in walking
and trotting; should be pure gated, SO
as to require neither boots nor toe
weights; should be free from blemish,
and last, but by no means least, should
be we'll broken and educated. All the
former requirements can be bred-in
fact, must be bred: but the education,
without which all else is naught, can
be added by the practical farmer in a
more thorough manner, and at much
less expense, than by the wealthy
breeder.
The greatest expense attached to
breeding trotters is in the development
Of the speed No matter how gener-
ous nature may have been In the speed
inheritance. the art of man must be
used to bring out this inheritance; and
good trainers are an expensive luxury,
while a poor trainer is still more ex
pensive at any price. Not every
small breeder, even if he has the time
and desire to devote himself to train
ing, can hope to become proficient in
the art; but every man of ordinary
intelligence. and having a liking fol
handling horses, can become proticien1
in educating your horses and bringing
them properly TO the point where :
buyer can secure good road horse, OF
the expert trainer can take up the
education and bring out the reserve
speed. A horse properly bred anc
properly educated up to this point il
always salable at a good price.
The first point is to start right, fol
without this all subsequent efforts viii
be in vain.
1t is an accepted law among breed
ers that like produces like, or the like
ness of some ancestor, and the chances
are much greater that the qualities o.
the parents will be reproduced thar
those of more remote progenitors. II
follows then that if we start to pro