Page:Hints to Horse-keepers.djvu/83

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NARRAGANSET PACER.
75

disposition it was gentle and compliant. It moved almost to a wish, and never tired. I rode this little creature for 25 years, and twice in that time I rode 150 miles at a stretch without stopping, except to bait, and that not for above an hour at a time. It came in at the last stage with as much ease and alacrity as it travelled the first. I could have undertaken to have performed on this beast, when it was in its prime, 60 miles a day for a twelvemonth running, without any extraordinary exertion."

It is a matter of real regret that so excellent a breed of creatures should have been allowed to become extinct in both hemispheres, if it be not preserved by chance in the degenerated race of Galway. We say in both hemispheres—for although it is not generally known, it is yet certain that we once possessed in the far-famed Narraganset pacer the actual Spanish pacing jennet of Andalusia, and the exact counterpart of the Scottish Galloway. The color, pace, docility, size, endurance, all the characteristics, indeed, would almost establish this fact without direct evidence. But direct evidence is not wanting, as will be discovered by reference to "Updyke's History of the Episcopal Church in Narraganset," where will be found a curious letter from a Mr. Hazard, who was intimately acquainted with the race while it was at its highest perfection and held at its highest value; and who distinctly states it to be of Spanish origin, the ancestors having been brought from Cuba, where the breed was in such demand for ladies' saddle-horses that he attributes the extinction of the race in Rhode Island to the exportation of them in undue numbers to the Havana. We suspect, however, that the cause was rather the same which led to its extirpation in England—the improvement of roads and the introduction of wheeled carriages as the means of private conveyance, which rendered a larger and stronger horse necessary, and