And these are the rules that obtain to-day in keeping a register of which the rat-tailed semi-Conestoga Abdallah is No. 1. It will be seen by the rules certain features of the great breeding principle: “Like begets like” are followed, and there is no doubt that some intelligent breeders have tried most sincerely to embrace in the mating of stallions and mares all of the principles; but, as a rule, the speed test alone was considered instead of similarity of blood, similarity of conformation (for nature abhors great contrasts), and also performance. The importance given to the time tests and the public records and the disregard of pure and similar blood has detracted, in my opinion, most seriously from the success of the experiments and the effort to create a type of fast trotting horses. Why, the Standard Bred Trotter is not a type at all. They come in all sizes and shapes, they have no fixed gait, and not more than three per cent of them can trot fast enough to be considered even a good roadster. The visitors to the Speedway in New York have opportunities to see the best and fastest trotters in the world. There are certainly some fine animals shown there, a few that are splendid. But they are of all sorts in conformation and method of going. It cannot be a reproducing type under such circumstances. When a hundred colts and fillies are bred we want many more than three of that number to be able to accomplish the purpose of their creation. At least half of the progeny of the Standard Bred Trotters should be trotters themselves and more than half of the remainder should be good general utility horses. That is the case with the Morgans and the Denmarks, the two true American types, for these types have substance and character, besides a systematic method of breeding is pursued where lineage and conformation rather than performance count. And even with the Standard Bred Trotters that go fast—the three per cent of them—quite half of them are pacers rather than trotters. Gen. Benjamin F. Tracy said in a letter to the _Turf, Field and Farm_, February 15, 1901, that the greater proportion of fast Standard Bred Trotters are not trotters at all, but pacers. There has been no one to dispute this statement, which was not one merely of opinion, but of compilation. The trotting men, however, avoid this by saying that trotting and pacing are the same gait, because many horses both trot and pace and because a pacer can be converted into a trotter. This theory is beyond my intelligence. I know that the natural gaits of a natural horse are walk, trot, and gallop. Many that do these gaits, as in the case of the Denmarks, can do several others besides—the rack and the running walk, for instance. Yet no one will say that these gaits are all the same. It is too preposterous to discuss. Besides, the pace is not a fit gait for a gentleman’s roadster. It may be well enough for butchers, barkeepers and gamblers, but a gentleman should have a gentleman’s horse.