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SOURCE OF THE PACING GAIT

The history of the pacing horse is as old as antiquity. The changes that have been wrought in the status of the pacer during the last 100 years it truly remarkable. To many who are not conversant with the business, and who have not been actively engaged in the sport, the causes and methods that have been adopted to bring the lateral-gaited horse to the front are an absorbing study.

Some have maintained that the pace is an artificial and cultivated gait. The ancient story that the pacing instinct sprang from the Narragansett pacer is a myth. Some wiseacres have maintained that the original pacer in America, while being taken by ship from Egypt, was 'storm struck,' the pacer being thrown overboard in mid-ocean; and after 10 days the horse was found on the coast of Newfoundland, where he had swum ashore, and that he was found eating rushes on a sand-bar, from where he was rescued and taken to Narragansett Bay.

The idea that the pace is a cultivated gait, and that the trotter antedates the pacer, is absurd. The pacer antedated the trotter by thousands of years. History tells us so.

On the summit of the Acropolis in Athens stand the ruins of the Parthenon, a magnificent temple erected to the goddess Minerva. The building was commenced in the year BC 437, and was completed five years afterwards. All the statuary was the work of the famous Phidias and his scholars. It was made from Pentelic marble. This noted building resisted the ravages of time, and had in turn been converted to a Christian temple and a Turkish mosque. In 1676 it was still entire, but in 1687 Athens was beseiged by the Venetians and the Parthenon was hopelessly wrecked. As a ruin it became the prey of the Turks and other devastators. In order to save some of what remained of it's precious works, Lord Elgin, about the year 1800, brought home to England some portions of the frieze of the temple, with other works of Phidias in marble. He sold them to the Government and they are now preserved in the British Museum.

The frieze is a most interesting subect of study, not only as a specimen of Greek art of the period of Pericules, but as a historic record of the type and action of the Greek horses of that day. It consists of a series of white marble slabs, about four feet wide, upon which are sculptured in high relief the heroes and defenders of Athens, mounted on horses, and the horses are all pacing and distinctly show the pacing attitude.

This is the first record of the pacer, and it is now over 2340 years old. The statuary of the early ages furnished some excellent illustrations of the gait of the horses of that period of the world's history. The four bronze horses on St Marks in Venice are known throughout the world, and they are all in the pacing attitude. The true date of these horses is lost in history, but it is pretty certain that they were cast in Rome about the beginning of the Christian era. Their capture in Rome and transfer to Constantinople, then their capture by the Venetians and transfer to Venice, next their capture by Napoleon and transfer to Paris, and then their restoration to Venice, are all matters of history.

In the first half of the seventeenth century pacers were popular, common and abounded everywhere in England. In the second half of the eigtheenth century not one could be found in all Britian! Of all the facts that are known and established in history of the English horse, the wiping out of the pacer is the most striking and significant. The little English pacers that had been the favourite of kings and princes for so many years were submerged in the strains of Saracenic blood that flowed in upon them, and their only legitimate descendants left upon the face of the earth found homes in the American colonies.

Their blood was one of the principal elements in the foundation of the English racehorse, but the 'lateral-action' in his progeny was esteemed a bar sinister on the escutcheon of the stallions, and it was sought to cover it up with something more fashionable in name. The result was that the little pacer, 'having no friends at court,' was obliged to get out of the way with his 'lateral-gait.' In England, and under the observation of everybody, the pacer showed great tenacity to his long-inherited habit of action and, although buried in non-pacing blood, 'as supposed', of two or three generations, the pace was liable to crop out again at any time.

In the latter half of the last century there were a good many excellent trotters in England, but the further they got away from the blood of the English pacer the fewer trotters they found. It seems to be true of all countries today that where there are no pacers there are also no trotters.

It was during the era from 1775 to 1850 that a lot of the stronger pacing blood trickled into Canada (which has always been strong in pacers) as pacers that could not be converted to trot were not worth the price of a good mule at the time in the United States. But the pacers and amblers were popular in Canada as saddle horses and buggy horses. This was probably how the bulk of the pacers went to Canada; and, when crossed with the native mares, produced the 'Canadian Pacer'. From these came different families that predominated, such as 'The Pilots', 'The Columbus', 'The Copperbottoms', 'The St Lawrences', 'The Royal Georges', 'The Clear Gritts', etc.

Later, when the pacer became popular, quite a number of these Canadian pacers were taken to Kentucky and other States, and while they sired a lot of very useful racehorses, most of them failed to breed on through their sons, and petered out in a generation or so. But their daughters were bred to Hambletonian 10, and played a big part in helping to establish the Hambletonian family.

Today the two gaits, trotting and pacing are breeding-wise inseperable. They apparently always were different sides of the same thing.

Credit: 'Oldtimer' writing in NZ Trotting Calendar 29Mar72