“The common planters, leading easy lives, don’t much admire labor or any manly exercise except horse-racing, nor diversion except cock-fighting, in which some greatly delight. This easy way of living, and the heat of the summers, make some very lazy, who are then said to be climate struck. The saddle horses, although not very large, are hardy, strong, and fleet; and will pace naturally and pleasantly at a prodigious rate. They are such lovers of riding that almost every ordinary person keeps a horse, and I have known some spend the morning in ranging several miles in the woods to find and catch their horses only to ride two or three miles to church, to the courthouse or to a horse race, where they generally appoint to meet on business, and are more certain of finding those they want to speak or deal with than at their home.” Mr. Jones here places us in close contact with the character and habits of the people of that day, as well as with the character and qualifications of their horses. It is not to be inferred, I think, that all their horses were pacers, but that all their saddle horses were pacers there can be little doubt. This is the first intimation we have from Virginia that some of their pacers were very fast, and when Mr. Jones says “they could pace naturally and pleasantly at a prodigious rate,” he means that the speed was marvelous, wonderful, astonishing. This “prodigious rate,” in a good measure, balances Dr. McSparran’s account of the Narragansett, which he had seen go a mile “in a little over two minutes and a good deal less than three,” and gives strength to the statement of Mr. Lewis, that when a boy he had ridden in pacing matches and return matches between the Rhode Islanders and the Virginians. In the _Virginia Gazette_, under date of January 11, 1739, we find the following advertisement, to which we invite special attention, as it brings out some facts which, inferentially, throw a great deal of light upon horse racing, up to that period: