PREFACE. AT the dose of 1904 Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, reported that the value of farm products in the United States for that year was 4,9oo, ooo, ooo-nearly double the gross earnings of the railroads added to the value of the production of all the mines of the country for the same period. This official statement opened the eyes of feverish municipalities to the importance of agricultural life. The value of horses owned by farmers is placed at I, I o, ooo, ooo. In I go5 horses increased in number to 17,000,000, and in value to, eoo, ooo, ooo. The type of the farm horse has been elevated by the dissemination of blood, the virtue of which was proved by the sharpest of physical tests. For generations the progressive farmer has striven to excel in the creation of an animal combining activity with strength, and his trial ground has been the road and oval at the Countjr or District Fair. He has labored unceasingly to eliminate the running gait, and to establish the trotting gait. The harness horse, not the saddle horse, has been his hope and pride. It is only in the large city, where speculation, mildly speaking, borders on the hysterical, that the running horse is a popular favorite. The farmers, who dominate the national life, gather at the tracks of smaller v PREFACE centers of activity to gratify a desire for excitement and to enlarge the human understanding by watching the distribution of prizes among trotters and pacers. The tracks on which the light harness horse performs are counted by the thousand, and the results of races on which comparatively little money is risked have shown the way to a standard of excellence. In 1906 speculation was restricted or prohibitedin some localities, but as a rule the meetings were never so largely attended or the races more earnestly contested, thus demonstrating beyond cavil the strong hold of trotting on the public at large. In The Trotting and the Pacing Horse in America, published in July, 1904, I have given a compact history of harness speed evolution, and the reader is referred to it for a grouping of foundation families. In these pages I have enlarged upon the subject, and given personal recollections of the men, as well as horses, who played conspicuous parts in the formative era of breeds and track discipline. Millions of people are deeply interested in the question, and I have endeavored to discuss it from a high standpoint and to reflect the truth as revealed by thousands of letters, many of which, in being kept so long from the public eye, show the ravages of time. At the urgent request of George B. Raymond, I undertook this task, and, when I grew weary of it, was encouraged to go on by one in whose judgment I had confidence, whose loyalty was sincere, whose sympathy was responsive, whose religion was to speak kindly of those vi PREFACE with whom she was brought in contact, and upon whose face the eternal shadow fell, even while the wonderful sunshine of Colorado was flooding the landscape with a glory which rivaled in poetic conception that of the throne upon which IVisdom sits and reads as a child does its A B C the profound Mystery which so staggers intellects not freed by Faith as to cause them to take refuge in I do not Know. HAMILTO BU N S BEY. vii CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE C ORNE S R T ONE OF BREEDING . I 11. GENERAGLR AN A T S A LOVE O R F HORSES 7 111. ROBHRT B ONNE O R N SHOEING . I4 IV.WILLIA H I . VANDERBILSTE LLS MAUD S. . . 26 V. THE S TRUGGLE TO HOLD T HE THRONE 39 VI. JAY-EYE-SE A E ND SOMEM ATCHR ACES 44 VII...