alone take part in races over courses less than half a mile in length.
The Horse in America. According to paleontology, the horse is indigenous to the American Continent, but it is certain that the American horse of to-day is the descendant of animals brought here by Europeans and the first settlers. Cortés used but few horses in his Mexican conquest, but undoubtedly some of them became progenitors of the American wild horse; and similarly, the horses abandoned by the unfortunate Ferdinand De Soto near the Texas border became the progenitors of all the wild horses of North America. (See Horse, Fossil.) The character and action of the American horse will be found fully described under Trotting and Pacer.
The Colonial Period. The earliest colonists of Virginia were not remarkable for the qualities that make the ideal pioneer, so that it is not surprising to learn that their first supply of domestic animals (including horses) was consumed as food. Although there had been several shipments of horses from London down to about 1640, in 1646 there were only between 200 and 300 horses of both sexes in the colony. In 1656 the exportation of mares was prohibited by law, but in 1667 the restriction was removed. The horses of the period are described as having been of hardy and strong quality, but undersized, and, like the horses in other colonies, they were branded and turned loose to find their own subsistence. Owing to the rapidity of their increase, they were soon very numerous and became practically wild; so much so that at the close of the seventeenth century it was a common as well as profitable sport to hunt wild horses, for an animal without a brand became the property of its captor. On the island of Chintoteague, off the coast of Virginia, there are still in existence bands of wild horses, and only within recent decades has there been any attempt to domesticate any of their number. They are of all colors, and uniform in size, not averaging over 13 hands, and are accounted for in their present location as being the descendants of a band of Virginian wild horses which located there when it was a peninsula, and had their retreat cut off when time converted what had been a peninsula into an island. Notwithstanding occasional efforts to increase its size, the Virginian horse retained the characteristics of its English ancestor.
The settlers of New Netherlands brought their horses from Utrecht. They were larger, better, and more valuable, so far as prices were concerned, than the English horses of the other colonies, but were not regarded as being as good for saddle work. The two breeds soon intermixed, and a larger breed resulted, for at the time of the Revolution the average height was 14 hands and 1 inch. Horse-racing was introduced by Governor Nicholls, of New York, in 1665. He established a race-course on Hempstead Plains, Long Island, which was the first official and properly organized race-course on the Continent. It is supposed that the horses were of the Dutch breeds, because the people attending were largely of that nationality. The English race-horse was not at that time thoroughly developed, and in any case was not imported into New York until nearly one hundred years afterwards. The New England colonies played a very important part in the development of the modern American horse. In 1629 the first horses were imported into New England from the proprietary company in London. In 1635, 27 mares and 3 stallions were shipped from Holland, and sold in Salem; and five years later conditions were such that the colonists were enabled to export a shipment of 80 animals to the Barbados. It has been ascertained from an investigation covering the period 1756-59 that the average height of horses was 14 hands 1 inch, and that three-fourths of the total number were pacers and one-fourth trotters. The founders of Hartford, Conn., brought horses with them (1636), and in 1653 the General Court at New Haven ordered all horses to he branded, and instituted a system of public saddle-horses for hire. The average size was 13 hands and 3 inches. Roger Williams and the settlers of Rhode Island Colony (1636) obtained their horses from Massachusetts, and succeeded so well in the breeding of them that in 1690 horses were their principal export, and they shipped them to all the colonies of the coast. Pacers were raised in Rhode Island, and were widely known as Narragansett pacers. Trade with Canada was not permitted, but there is no reason to doubt that an occasional trade was made, whereby a Narragansett pacer changed owners for the consideration of a bale of peltry, such as only the French Canadian could offer. Racing was especially encouraged in Rhode Island, and thus was developed the speed that made their horses famous. In 1768 the average size of a Narragansett was 14 hands and 1 inch. The horses of Pennsylvania were not handsome, but good. In the early part of the seventeenth century the Pennsylvania horse was the largest and heaviest horse in the country; but one hundred years later they seem to have ranked in both respects below the horses of all the other colonies. Up to 1750 the average size in eastern Pennsylvania was about 13 hands and 1¼ inches. Philadelphia boasted the speediest and finest horses, and pacers were the most fashionable and popular. New Jersey supplied itself from New York and Pennsylvania, and by the beginning of the eighteenth century racing had become so common as to be a nuisance: so much so that in 1748 there was enacted a law for the suppression of ‘running, pacing, and trotting races.’ The year before the Colony of Maryland, which had in all probability received its supply of horses from Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, passed a similar law. North and South Carolina secured their horses from Virginia. In Canada horses were received from Picardy, France, in 1665, and it is assumed they were largely of the English type. Many of them are supposed to have been pacers; but whether they were, or whether, as is sometimes argued, the Canadian pacer is derived from the illicit trading with Rhode Islanders for their Narragansetts, is a question much discussed.
The American horse was for two hundred years the sole means of travel, and the great essential to all business in and between the various colonies of the country. Improved roads have made him a driving horse, and none of the inventions of modern times, from the introduction of railroads to bicycles and horseless vehicles generally, has affected his popularity or his value. To the superficial observer it would appear as if improved means of vehicular transport would diminish the breeding of horses, as well as decrease their value, but thus far such has not been the
