The New York herald., 1921-06-19
HOPPLED TROTTERS
ARE NOW IN SIGHT
Other Trainers to Follow Elk.
ample of Garrison With
Admiral Harris.
BY GURNEY @. CUE.

Horse Dealers Sweepstakes may lead
other trainers to try out the straps
this season on some of their bad acting
trotters. according to reports from
Philadelphia The Admiral was an ut
ter failure with his legs free last year.
He trotted six losing races in success
sion, with Just one winning heat to his
credit in 2:27. With his legs tied to-
gether at Belmont Driving Park he
won his race in 2:12h the next time
he started.
Though hopples are used almost ex
clusively on PAGERS. Admiral Harris is
not the only trotter that has worn
them. Only last season the California
horse Surety. 2:09A. made his record
Pacific coast trotter, became a con-
sistent winner earning a record OF
2;os% when the hopples were put on
him in 1918 to keep him from breaking.
In the previous years racing he had not
won heat. Bingen, 06H, the grand
sire of Admiral Harris, was trained in
hopples when two years old, and his
fast son, Bergen. :06%, the sire Of
Admiral Harris. always needed them or
something else to keep him on his
stride.
Genesis Of HOpples.
Chicago editor recently asserted
that hopples were originally used to
convert natural PAGERS to the trotting
gait and that John w. Browning, an
indianapolis trainer, invented them in
the days when Wilson's Blue Bull, Tom
Crowder, Bull Pup and other Indiana
sires were filling the Hoosier State with
equine sidewheelers. Both statements
are wide of the mark. hopples having
been very generally in use more than
900 years ago in England and Continen-
tai Europe for the purpose of teaching
riding horses to pace. Travel at that
period was on horseback, and the easy
going amblers as PAGERS were then
called. came to be in such demand that
trammels, or hopples. were used to
make" them. The ancient word tram
mel is one of the many contributions of
horsemanship to the English language
which have come down to modern times
with new Significance
Gervase Markham, who erote a book
In 1917 on the Art and Secrets Which
Belong to Ambling Horses" quoted
Pliny as saying nearly nineteen hundred
years ago that natural amblers abound
ed in Northwestern Spain, and that the
horsemen of other nations from the
imitation of them began the practice of
compelling horses to amble with a GER
tain device made Of cords and lines fet-
tered and bound about the horses feet"
From this Markham inferred that the
trammel was the first and most ancient
ist invention tat ever was found out for
the making of horses to amble" He i'm
proved the hobble of Pliny's day by put
II 1D. a. - 4
the knee and hook, with hair cords con-
Meeting these bands, making substantial
ly the same device now in use among
American trainers The original tram
mel seems to nave been let down below
the knees and hooks, where it was
great impediment.
Revived by Yankee Horsemen.
When wheeled vehicles--stage wagons
and chariots-Lame into use for travel
ing. at litt.o later period than Mark
hams day. the ambling saddle horse
passed away with that smooth and
easie pace which the labour and in
dustrie of ali ingenious braine hath
found out to relieve the aged. sicke and
diseased persons, to make women under
take journeying. and so by their COM
munity to g ace society, and to make
great men by the ease of travel more
WnllIlk " tutfHStlNeS lIltO lIe OIL
fices of the commonwealth, and to do the
poore both reliefs and service" With
the passing of the ambling palfrey the
ancient tramr1els, or hopples, were dis
carded and almost forgotten.
What particular Yankee horsenAan 1t
was who revived them, perhaps after
reading Markham's book. to stabilize
the gait of some unsteady PAGER in
harness racing is not known. All the
early American PAGERS were free-legged
horses. 1t was not until about thirty
years ago that the hopples became at
all common. and even then the free
legged PAGERS far outnumbered the other
kind. But in 1898 the hoppled brigade
had become so numerous that William
B. Fas1g, long the secretary of the
Cleveland Driving Park, said of them
'Hopples are the bane of light har
ness racing. They have done more
than anything else to cheaper horses;
have brought odium on the sport and
are. from every point, a disgrace to the
trotting turf
Five years later w. II. Gocher sec
retary OF the National Trotting Asso-
citation, said:
Ninety per cent. of the men identi-
fled with racing are opposed to hop
pies, but as the associations, with very
few exceptions, want all of the entries
IN SlRnt, tnelr use mas Deen permitted
until they have become so common that
It is rare thing to see a PAGER on
a half mile track without them, while
on the mile tracks even the best gated
ones that are liable to make a break
wear the straps"
Not an Unmixed Evil.
The influences which Mr. Gocher men,
toned were felt when the N. T. A.,
aboutNwenty years ago, adopted a rule
providing for the gradual abolshment
OF hopples. Before anything had been
accomplished the rule was repealed
While the great majority Of breeders
and owners. as well as many trainers.
have always opposed the use Of hopples
as tending to cheaper the sport and
the breed of trotting horses there is
something to be said on the other side
OF the question. The use of hopples
has operated TO greatly Increase the
number OF pacing horses and pacing
races. and with the increase in OPP
portunity for the PAGER has come the |
almost universal practice Of developing
colts at their natural gait when that gait |
is the pace. Before the earning ca
pacity of the PAGER had become what |
II is now there was always temptation |
to put the toe weights on an undeve- |
oped PAGER and convert him into n trot- |
ter II possible. This practice. carried |
"a q ~ fn