Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1894-06-01

certainty AS to the gait can be known in
advance" AS long rs we have men who
practice mixing of blood and gait, we
will have mlxed-gaited and double-gaited
horses, but no true type, no positively
established breed either of trotters or
PAGERS. But is it not ludicrous after
years and years of mixed breeding to
have writer's like "Iconoclast' point to
families that, being mixed bred, naturally
produce both trotters and PAGERS, as evil
dence that the gaits are "interchahgea-
ble'' in transmission. What does he ex-
pect from such breeding? The wonder
is not that we have so many families and
sizes that utterly lack the power to trans
nit uniformity of gait. but that we have
any family at all which breeus even APP
proXimately true to any specific gait.
The writer acknowledges to once hav-
ing entertained the conviction that the
trot aud the pace were practically denti-
cal, or rather were simple variations of
one order of action, but he long ago
BILE, that the gaits were distinct, and that
it was not in accordance with the best
light on the breeding science to hold that
any certain type having specific qualities
could be established by breeding from
blood in which these qualities was not a
fixed and predominating characteristic.
The contention as to the "interchange-
ability of the trot and the pace in repro
duction is the veriest sophism. That
horses of mixed breeding, of mixed pac-
ing and trotting Inheritance, should pro-
duce sometimes PAGERS and sometimes
trotters is simply natural, and in no sense
evidence of the essential oneness of the
two gaits' and from such inevitable re-
suits to argue that the two gaits are sir
retrievably" mixed in the blood is simply
preposterous. AS before remarked, what
has been mixed by slipshod and haphaz-
ard breeding could be separated by me-
thodical selection.
The history of the horses of England
is "A sufficient answer to the "interchange-
ability" argument and the theory that
you cannot breed for purity of trotting
gait. The evidence is rresistiblv con-
elusive that in the early days PAGERS
abOunded in England. The fact is unds-
puted that there are none there now. But
there are trotting tribes. As long as a
hundred years ago the Norfolk trotter
a1 t,b lei
But who ever heard of Norfolk trotter
pacing? And if the two gaits are "es-
sentially one" why is it that the Nor
folks, the Hackneys, the Cleveland bays
all have trotting action, but never pace q?
A uniform gait has been established
there, certainly.
There have been and are PAGERS that
could not trUt step, and trotters that
could not pace a stride. All PAGERS also
know the gallop and all trotters can
both trot and gallop. There is there
fore much more reason to contend as to
the ''interchangeability" of the trot and
the gallop, than of the trot and the pace,
for we know that often one of the
latter gaits will be absolutely foreign
to a horse while the gallop is common to
all.
Without following Tconoclas t"
through all his observations, in which
the question is really begged through
out, take this as a sample indicating the
looseness of his "facts" and arguments;
So far as know there is not single
strain of trotting horses that is rot full
to the brm and running over with pac-
ing blood,
That is truly and weirdly Wallacian
Leaving traditions, suppositons and
VAN imaginings aside, and sticking to
plain fact, can "IconOclast" when he re-
members Hambletonian, Robert Nc
Gregor, Electioneer, AleXander's Abb
dallah, Woodford Mambrino, Volunteer,
Edward Everett, ETC., etc., give any
reasonable excuse for making such a
queerly wild statement as the one
quoted ?-and yet it is on par with
about half the assumptions upon which
his conclusions are based. To say that
the strains coming unmiXed from Elec-
tioneer, McGregor, Edward Everett, ETC.,
are "brim full and running over with
pacing blood" is about as near the truth
as Randolph Huntington used to get
when explaining how the ARAB blood
made STEAMBOAT trot in 2:073.
The fact is that in the horses named
there was no pacing blood, instinct or
inclination, and, bred to mares with
none, not one of their progeny would
ever have paced naturally. Neither
would any descendant of Tom Hal trot
naturally had the Hal blood never been
blended with any but pacing strains.
1t is possible to breed, by intelligent Sc
lection, any specific quality uniformly
in greater or less degree of develop
ment and natural gift-and all expert
ence is against the contention that so
important physical function and mental